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Successful principals help teachers improve their individual practice, whether they are new or veteran.

hese principals gauge what their teachers need and arrange for the appropriate support. They assign mentor teachers; they send in instructional coaches or more-accomplished teachers to teach model lessons; they or their delegates observe instruction frequently and offer suggestions; and they meet with teachers regularly to look at student data, discuss relevant research, and explore options for their classrooms.

Successful principals work with groups of teachers to find patterns of instruction within grade levels and departments.

Educators Evaluating Quality Instructional Products (EQuIP) is a collaborative of ADP Network states that are focused on increasing the supply of quality instructional materials that are aligned to the Common Core State Standards and available for instruction in elementary, middle, and high school classrooms. 

School leaders and math teachers must therefore understand the instructional implications of CCSS in addition to the content implications. This is why I begin Math CCSS training with a discussion of six shifts in instruction associated with CCSS: Focus: fewer topics covered in greater depth Coherence: connect learning within and across grades Fluency: perform mathematics with speed and accuracy Understanding: use mathematics in complex situations Application: know when and how applying math can solve a problem Dual Intensity: achieve fluency and conceptual understanding/application

What is informational text? Common Core uses “informational text” as another term for “nonfiction text.”  This category includes historical, scientific, and technical texts that provide students with factual information about the world. Typically, they employ structures such as cause and effect, compare and contrast, and problem and solution. They also contain text features like headlines and boldface vocabulary words.  Because of their narrative structures, biographies and autobiographies do not look like other nonfiction texts. In fact, they are often classified as literary nonfiction. But the Common Core considers them to be informational text as well.  Another category of informational texts includes directions, forms, and information contained in charts, graphs, maps, and digital resources. Simply put, if students are reading it for the information it contains, it’s informational text. 

Putting It Into Practice  With an understanding of what the standards are calling for, it’s time to start thinking about what instruction in informational text could look like in your classroom. Here are a few ideas.

. The phrase “academic and domain-specific vocabulary,” which appears several times, refers to words readers often encounter in textbooks across all subject areas.

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.

To design the text set, each person thought about a theme in the anchor text to explore. In this way, different people designed different text sets around a common anchor text. Next, each preservice teacher began to put a text set together. These requirements framed the assignment: The text set needed to include 6-8 texts, including the anchor text. The text set had to include both narrative and informational genres. The text set had to include both print and digital texts. The text set needed to include texts of varying complexity.

The authors inspired us to include both narrative and informational texts. The goals of this assignment were to help preservice teachers (1) understand what a text set is and (2) experience putting a text set together. Although the task seemed daunting at first, most preservice teachers were satisfied with their outcomes. The challenges we ran into included: Selecting an anchor text; Deciding on a theme in the anchor text to explore through the text set; Making informed choices about other texts to include.

These standards can seem daunting to preservice teachers. A text set assignment like the one described here is one way  teacher educators can help prepare our university students to plan curriculum and instruction that helps students make deeper connections.