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In this article, I make a case for student blogs as a tool that can support and extend students’ mathematics proficiency through the Standards for Mathematical Practice.

Teachers who use math journals can easily convert that process to a digital one through blogging.

The act of blogging allows for: students to make their thinking visible students and teachers to give one another feedback students and teachers to keep a record of student progress with mathematics What follows is a definition of the eight Standards for Mathematical Practice and a description of how blogging can enhance and strengthen students’ use of these practices:   Teachers who use math journals can easily convert that process to a digital one through blogging.

the push is now to implement next-generation learning goals that encourage higher-order thinking skills.

A critical piece in this roadmap will be new assessments, which have the potential to give school leaders new and better tools to guide instruction, support teachers, and improve outcomes. Assessment decisions will have a big impact on principals, who know the difference between leading a school constrained by punitively used tests that fail to measure many of the most important learning goals, and a school that uses thoughtful assessments to measure what matters and inform instruction.

Become part of a new accountability system that replaces the old test-and-punish philosophy with one that aims to assess, support, and improve. Tests should be used not to allocate sanctions, but to provide information, in conjunction with other indicators, to guide educational improvement.

With more and more of the world's content online, it is critical that students understand how to effectively use web search to find quality sources appropriate to their task. We've created a series of lessons to help you guide your students to use search meaningfully in their schoolwork and beyond. On this page, you'll find Search Literacy lessons and A Google A Day classroom challenges. Our search literacy lessons help you meet the new Common Core State Standards and are broken down based on level of expertise in search: Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced. A Google A Day challenges help your students put their search skills to the test, and to get your classroom engaged and excited about using technology to discover the world around them.

“With this test, you had to make your point and explain your answer,” said Desiree Jones. “In the future, you may have to do the same thing – back up your claim –where you work. You can’t just say, ‘That’s good.’ You’ll need to say what you think and why.”

Citing evidence, defending a position Desiree was referring to the performance assessment part of the test. It represents the biggest change from the state tests.

They were asked to take a position, using evidence based on what they read. They could use a split screen to cut and paste from the articles – a task that some students found difficult to do, especially for math problems, using their portable Chromebooks  – and they could write as much and take as much time as they wanted.

Key Shift #1 Focus strongly where the standards focus

Focus on going deep for mastery and transferring those skills.

Key Shift #2 Coherence: Think across grades, and link to major topics within grades

Creating Text-Dependent Questions for Close Reading Step One: Identify the core understandings and key ideas of the text Step Two: Start small to build confidence Step Three: Target vocabulary and text structure Step Four: Tackle tough sections head‐on Step Five: Create coherent sequences of text-dependent questions Step Six: Identify the standards that are being addressed Question Stems for Close Reading of Informational Texts (Adapted from Race to the Top/Strategies for Close Reading) What clues show you … Point to the evidence … How does the author describe X in paragraph X? What are the exact words? What reasons does the book give for X? Where are they? Share a sentence that (tells you what the text is about, or describes X, or gives a different point of view) What is the purpose of paragraph X? What are the clues that tell you this? What does the author think about X? Why do you think so — what is your evidence? What do you predict will happen next? What are the clues that make you think so?

Examples of Text-Dependent Questions Could people live on Earth if there were no Sun? Why or why not? Use evidence from the text to support your answer. Explain why conditions on a distant planet like Neptune are so different than those on Earth. In the end, our task is unwavering: create questions that provide opportunities to teach strategies to our kids so they feel successful when they search for evidence and key words to answer text-dependent questions. Don't allow our students to answer a question without evidence and proof. Hold our students to high expectations, and constantly use those magic words, "Tell me more.""