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anonymous

English Language Arts Deconstructed Standards- Kentucky DOE - 3 views

www.education.ky.gov/...ts+deconstructed+standards.htm

common core standards transition curriculum english language language arts CCR CCSSI

shared by anonymous on 27 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 27 Dec 11
     
    Templates of the new common core ELA standards for alignment work in districts
anonymous

Education Week: Four Questions on Common Core and Reading Assessment - 5 views

www.edweek.org/...13lorntz.h32.html

shared by anonymous on 20 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • How will these assessments interact with other assessments? How will they affect reporting trends in student achievement and/or graduation requirements? How can states and districts work together to help teachers meet this new challenge?
  • planning for professional development for teachers cannot be forgotten
  • Reading teachers are perhaps the key component of success on this front
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • four questions to guide districts in supporting teachers during this transition.
  • these questions will help ground and steer districts to ensure teachers and students alike are ready.
  • first guiding question
  • what kind of professional development will clarify which previous strategies associated with past assessments should be kept and/or adapted, and which should be discarded?
  • This question should be raised with teams of reading teachers, both schoolwide and grade by grade. Assessments related to advanced student learning not described by the common core should also be addressed. We believe previous lessons learned about alternate assessments and special populations, such as English-language learners, deserve special attention.
  • second question
  • There are no common-core content domains for reading, like those that are available for math. Therefore, what kinds of professional development should be designed to support the identification of curriculum-mapping and instructional strategies for reading? This question demands a long-term view toward comparative student growth across grades.
  • we have documented a proliferation of free online trainings at the state level that support transitioning to reading within the common core. Superlative examples of state-level offerings include those developed by the Oregon and Maine education departments.
  • third question, is which professional-development activities and resources should be generated at the district level?
  • it appears that extensive support programs for teachers are not as common at the district level. A few standouts at the district level include Orange County, Calif., and the city of Baltimore.
  • a variety of partial-, full-, and multi-day professional-development seminars for teachers and administrators related to the common-core English/language arts standards
  • The work in both Orange County and Baltimore illustrates a larger lesson: In deciding what kind of professional-development opportunities to create at the district level, a focused approach should be used, one that is resplendent with examples of both content and practice.
  • fourth and last question
  • Appropriate technology-based skills related to instruction and to formative, interim, and summative assessments of reading must be considered, leading to our final question: What professional-development activities would ensure the kind of teacher proficiency needed to administer, understand, and interact with computer-adaptive and computer-based testing specific to reading?
  • A baseline of teacher knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to technology must first be carefully documented before any professional development can be designed. Likewise, corresponding documentation of teacher growth should be maintained throughout the process.
  • basic professional-development needs among teachers implementing the common core include training on literacy assessment, technology skills, practical learning experiences oriented toward the new standards and assessments, time for professional collaboration, a teacher-leader in each school, and continuous networking between teachers.
anonymous

Education Week: Districts Gear Up for Shift to Informational Texts - 2 views

www.edweek.org/...24informational_ep.h31.html

common districts texts education CCSSI standards informational text

shared by anonymous on 19 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • choose books about those real-world topics as part of a unit on truth. Students are dissecting the sources, statistics, and anecdotes the authors use to make their arguments
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 19 Mar 12
       
      Notice how the emphasis is on "dissecting" the information in the text, not necessarily on the text itself as a "good example" of informational text. It's more about getting students to be critical consumers of the "truthfulness" of the author's message based on quality resources to back up the author's viewpoint. Excellent point about what "close reading of the text really is!"
  • Often, our nod to nonfiction is the autobiography or true-story version of something,"
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • But there's a real gap in other kinds of nonfiction
  • I'm relying on different kinds of strategies and a lot more explicit teaching,
  • We spend a lot of time talking about attributes of nonfiction, like how to read an interview. Or how to tell the difference between fact and opinion."
  • Using fiction has many positive and useful values, and it shouldn't be lost or pushed so far to the sidelines that it disappears."
  • The common standards' emphasis on informational text arose in part from research suggesting that employers and college instructors found students weak at comprehending technical manuals, scientific and historical journals, and other texts pivotal to their work in those arenas.
  • The common core's vision of informational text includes literary nonfiction, as well as historical documents, scientific journals and technical manuals, biographies and autobiographies, essays, speeches, and information displayed in charts, graphs, or maps, digitally or in print.
  • vocabulary
  • professional development aimed at helping teachers think through how to craft instructional units and tasks reflecting the shift in the standards
  • district set up a digital "common-core library" that includes 13 "bundles" of sample activities, lesson plans, and other resources for instruction based on informational text
  • The immediate challenge of the informational-text emphasis, however, lies more in training than in materials,
  • [it's] actually figuring out how to structure classrooms so we speak to text and kids are using text in conversations with each other and are grappling with the meaning of text.
  • we need to make sure that by the end of high school, students are reading science journals,
  • right now, just simply the act of reading the science textbook and absolutely making the textbook—rather than the teacher—generate the answers.
  • It's one thing to tell school districts that we must do close reading of informational text," he said. "It's very different to say, 'Here is what's involved with a close reading.' "
  • Treasures does include some informational text, "but not sufficiently, we would say. We wanted something that would supplement that."
  • elementary reading coaches have met with Nell K. Duke, the Michigan State University professor who wrote Buzz About IT, and are meeting monthly to study her research, Ms. Acquavita said
  • Funding for materials and professional development that reflect the standards could prove to be an issue for states, and, as a result, for companies that produce them
  • We have been unpleasantly surprised that a number of states are only now starting to wrestle with the cost of this,
  • New criteria for adoptions of basal instructional materials for the bridge year, approved by the state in January, specify that materials must include "high-quality, complex informational text" in the ratios specified by the standards.
  • Its statewide literacy plan delves into explanations of six major shifts in the English/language arts standards, and the state has also produced an online "toolkit" offering teachers instructional videos and other resources on those shifts.
  • The biggest concern state officials are hearing from teachers is that they be assured of having adequate lesson plans, curriculum maps, and other resources to teach the standards once that begins in 2012-13
  • o convey its expectations for new materials, the state has hosted a webinar for publishers, pointing them to the "publishers' criteria" developed by the common-standards writers for grades K-2 and 3-12, which describe what is required for materials to align well with the standards.
  • anonymous on 19 Mar 12
     
    information text- actions by districts to prepare for CCSS changes
anonymous

Early Reaction to 'Publishers' Criteria' for Math Common Core - Curriculum Matters - Ed... - 2 views

blogs.edweek.org/...back_is_beginning_to_roll.html

shared by anonymous on 15 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • "I really like the bit about visual design that isn't distracting or chaotic," Findell said. "I've opened too many textbooks that are like walking into a video arcade. ... You want the graphics there to support the mathematical ideas, rather than just being, 'Wow, what a cool picture.' Skip to the next page."
  • Special Populations Findell said "one of the most important contributions" of the publishers' criteria was clearly stating that instructional materials should be consistent with the common core's call to provide all students the opportunity to learn and meet the same standards. As the document explains, "Thus, an overarching criterion for materials and tools is that they provide supports for special populations such as students with disabilities, English-language learners, and gifted students." Findell told me: "We have an unfortunate history in this country of identifying some students as not yet ready for grade-level instruction and then giving them something less—often much less. In other words, we notice students who are behind, and we slow them down. We usually do it out of compassion, but the consequences are devastating for students." So he said a "crucial message" about common-core implementation is that all students receive grade-level instruction, even if some students need additional support.
anonymous

Consortia Provide Preview of Common Assessments - 4 views

www.edweek.org/...01tests_ep.h32.html

common core CCSSI standards assessments CCSS

shared by anonymous on 20 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • sample items being drafted for those exams offer early ideas of what lies ahead.
  • “What we are starting to see here are tests that really get at a deeper understanding on the part of students, not just superficial knowledge,” said Robert L. Linn, an assessment expert and professor emeritus of education at the University of Colorado at Boulder who reviewed a sampling of the consortia’s materials.
  • Mr. Linn predicted that even with sample items to guide them, vendors will find it tough to develop tasks and questions that fully reflect the aims of the two state groups
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • “Where the real difficulty comes up is when you actually develop the items,” he said. “It will be a challenge for vendors to come up with items that meet these specifications. They are used to writing items for state tests that do not get at this depth of knowledge.”
  • Comprehension, Not Guesswork
  • “To perform well on these kinds of assessment items, just having good test-taking skills will not be enough of an edge to perform well,” said Mr. Kaase, who now runs a Jackson-based consulting company that works with states and districts on testing, curriculum, and accountability issues.
  • Materials developed by PARCC, too, illustrate for vendors item types that require a grasp of the topic, said Mr. Kaase. One, for instance, asks 4th graders to plot the following numbers along a number line: 2, 5/4, 3x1/2, 3/4+3/4, and 2-1/10.
  • “You have to understand the meaning of the numbers and how they relate in order to answer this,” Mr. Kaase said.
  • Mr. Pack, who is a teacher-leader for PARCC, helping colleagues deepen their knowledge of the group’s work. “I was a little concerned at first blush, because they’re really complex. But they’re good math problems. They’re above the level of what we’re currently doing, but they’re attainable.”
  • He pointed to one illustrative example in PARCC’s materials that tries to gauge students’ fluency in division and multiplication. It offers five equations, such as 54÷9=24÷6, and asks 3rd graders to specify whether each is true or false.
  • “I like that it does multiple assessments in one item,” he said. “It asks kids to work each of those problems easily and be comfortable with it, which is what fluency is.”
  • PARCC expects to release sample items in English/language arts and math later this month, including prototypes developed under contract with the Institute for Learning at the University of Pittsburgh and the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
  • Many milestones lie ahead before the consortia can deliver fully populated banks of test items. In the coming months, both groups will conduct sessions in which items are tried out with students and their feedback is obtained. Smarter
  • Both consortia will conduct trials next year before full-fledged field tests in spring 2014.
  • Even as sample items are crafted to help guide vendors on item-writing, the consortia and their partners caution that the item-development process is lengthy and full of revisions.
  • Jeffrey Nellhaus, PARCC’s assessment director, said he was acutely aware that the “field is hungry to see” how the goals of the common standards will be “made manifest” in assessment items, and is eager to examine the prototype items the consortium will get from the two research universities.
  • As officials from the Dana Center cautioned in an overview of the PARCC project, “Prototyping is for learning, and it can be messy.”
anonymous

Quick Guide to the Common Core: Key Expectations Explained - Vander Ark on Innovation -... - 5 views

blogs.edweek.org/...ey_expectations_explained.html

shared by anonymous on 07 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • English Language Arts The text is more complex.
  • Since the 1960s, text difficulty in textbooks has been declining (Source: CCSS Appendix A)
  • has created a significant gap between what students are reading in twelfth grade and what is expected of them when they arrive at college.
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • the CCSS cites an ACT report called Reading Between the Line that says that the ability to answer questions about complex text is a key predictor of college success.
  • The text covers a wider range of genres and formats.
  • In order to be college-, career-, and life-ready, students need to be familiar and comfortable with texts from a broad range of genres and formats. The Common Core State Standards focus on a broader range and place a much greater emphasis on informational text.
  • The Common Core sets expectation that, in grades three through eight, 50 percent of the text be expository. Specifically, in grades three through five, there is a call for more scientific, technical, and historic texts, and in grades six through eight, more literary nonfiction including essays, speeches, opinion pieces, literary essays, biographies, memoirs, journalism, and historical, scientific, technical, and economic accounts.
  • In addition, students are expected to understand the presentation of texts in a variety of multimedia formats, such as video.
  • There is a greater emphasis on evidence-based questioning.
  • The standards have shifted away from cookie-cutter questions like, "What is the main idea?" and moved toward questions that require a closer reading of the text.
  • The questions are more specific, and so the students must be more adept at drawing evidence from the text and explaining that evidence orally and in writing.
  • Students are exposed to more authentic text.
  • The Publishers' Criteria for the Common Core State Standards, developed by two of the lead authors of the standards, emphasize a shift away from text that is adapted, watered down, or edited, and instead, focus on text in its true form. While scaffolding is still considered an important element when introducing students to new topics, it should not pre-empt or replace the original text. The scaffolding should be used to help children grasp the actual text, not avoid it.
  • The standards have a higher level of specificity.
  • There is a great amount of flexibility for educators to determine how they want to implement the new standards and the materials they choose to use and/or create; however, the standards themselves are quite specific.
  • Additional Expectations
  • Shared responsibility for students' literacy development. In grades six through twelve, there are specific standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. The message here is that content area teachers must have a shared role in developing students' literacy skills.
  • Compare and synthesize multiple sources. Students are expected to integrate their understanding of what they are currently reading with texts that they have previously read.
  • need to answer how what they have just read compares to what they have learned before.
  • Focus on academic vocabulary. One of the biggest gaps between students, starting in the earliest grades, is their vocabulary knowledge. The new standards require a focus on academic vocabulary, presenting vocabulary in context, and using the same vocabulary across various types of complex texts from different disciplines.
  • The Common Core State Standards are not "test prep" standards. They aim to teach students how to think and raise the bar on their level of comprehension and their ability to articulate their knowledge.
  • However, the depth of the standards and the significant differences between the CCSS and current standards in most states require a whole new way of teaching, so even the most experienced teachers will need to make great changes and require support in doing so.
  • A lot of publishers are repurposing old materials and saying that they are "aligned" with the Common Core.
anonymous

Education Week: Solving the Textbook-Common Core Conundrum - 0 views

www.edweek.org/...37jobrack_ep.h31.html

shared by anonymous on 10 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • Most states have committed to implementing the Common Core State Standards in English/language arts and mathematics, but whether textbook publishers will help, hinder, or neutralize this effort is an open question.
  • The release and adoption of the common standards have inspired two major initiatives. The first is to educate teachers about the expectations of the new standards and how schools will have to change to meet the standards.
  • The second initiative is the incorporation of the new standards into educational materials.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • textbook publishers, who have invested tens of millions of dollars in their textbook series, are doing the minimum necessary to address the new standards.
  • it is unrealistic to expect that they will re-envision their materials if they don’t have to
  • if textbook publishers simply relabel their existing content without considering the intention of the standards, they will perpetuate the status quo and will not support the educational improvements the standards promise.
  • Adoption of the common core should result in improvements in student achievement. If educators do not change, student achievement will not change.
  • What is required of educators is the careful, intelligent, well-considered selection of content necessary to meet the standards; lessons that are sequenced to support student-learning trajectories; and teaching methods that are based on evidence of effectiveness.
  • Instead of a well-considered evaluation of available materials, schools tend to adopt and purchase educational materials for superficial reasons, either because they don’t have time for a thorough evaluation or they have little faith in textbooks.
  • On the other hand, educational publishers would bend over backwards to make effectiveness their top priority if the top-selling textbooks were those with the best sequence of lessons to develop each standard in depth, the most effective teaching methods, and the richest content.
  • Contrary to what many think, some textbooks are superior to others and do, in fact, meet some of the standards with fidelity.
  • eachers need to know and understand the new standards, but they should also be able to distinguish materials that faithfully reflect the standards from those that do not.
  • Schools have it in their power to improve student achievement. They can take the selection of educational materials more seriously, selecting the most effective resources available, allowing the free market to promote continual improvement as it does in other industries.
  • How can schools identify the most effective materials?
  • Establish an adoption team to analyze potential materials.
  • The team’s first job should be to develop expertise in the common standards and find research that supports effective teaching methods and student-learning trajectories.
  • Next, the adoption team should establish evaluation criteria for curricula and then employ those criteria to analyze instructional materials. The criteria should evaluate: teaching methods that are based on research and evidence; student-learning trajectories that are the basis for the development of lessons and concepts; content that is accurate and comprehensive and that meets the common standards; and effectiveness that can be verified.
  • Finally, the team should confirm that instructional materials in use share specific characteristics: The development of each required standard at a grade level is comprehensive, with a clear introduction, development, practice, and assessment. Content, readability, and skill expectations are appropriate for the population of students. Organization promotes natural learning progressions and logical development of skills and concepts. Lessons include an engaging and appropriate mix of learning activities and experiences that develop the critical concepts as identified by the standards. Teaching methods reflect effective practices as identified by research and experience. Materials support a change in teaching practices and are different from materials currently in use.
anonymous

DEDOE English Language Arts [Delaware Department of Education] - 3 views

www.doe.k12.de.us/...ela.shtml

shared by anonymous on 02 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 02 Mar 12
     
    ELA resources for aligning and unpacking common core- awesome resources for unpacked standards- scroll down to mid way on page
anonymous

Education Week: Common-Core Tests Pose Challenges in Special Ed. - 4 views

www.edweek.org/...33speced.h31.html

shared by anonymous on 08 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Two consortia of states have been awarded contracts to design exams for most students—including some with disabilities—who will take the tests, which will be computer-based or computer-adaptive. Another two groups are designing exams based on the standards for the 1 percent of students with the most severe cognitive disabilities. All four groups are in various stages of test development.
  • One of the obstacles facing students with disabilities who will take the exams has less to do with the tests than with instruction,
  • the most time any state was able to spend on teaching the current standards was 81 percent of the time students were in school, and special education teachers covered even less of the content and standards.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • "We get that test score, and we make that big inference that kids have been taught this," Mr. Elliott told the gathering of special education and testing experts, including members of the consortia that are designing common-core assessments and alternate assessments for students with significant cognitive disabilities. "Many students with disabilities need 30 to 40 more days of class time to get an equitable opportunity to learn."
  • And that disparity may only grow as the demanding common standards, in English/language arts and mathematics, are put in place.
  • Progress and Problems The major hurdle of increased, improved instruction aside, the technical and content issues posed by the exams are numerous, experts at the Education Department forum said.
  • Students with disabilities have become a bigger part of state accountability systems, albeit gradually, during the past 20 years, so that now even students with the most significant cognitive disabilities are included in state testing programs. One fundamental advantage to designing tests with students with disabilities in mind from the beginning is that, for the most part, the tests won't have to be adapted to work with those students after the fact, disability education experts have said. A need for such retrofitting is common with current state assessments.
  • One big issue lies with computer-adaptive tests, which pull from a bank of test questions with a wide range of difficulty. The computer adjusts the difficulty of the questions it poses based on a student's performance on previous questions. One problem with that approach is that some students may shut down if they miss the first question, Mr. Danielson said. Then there's the risk that the computer will throw a student a question that's below his or her grade level because of a series of incorrect answers that leads the computer to those questions, a possibility that concerns special education advocates.
  • Yet another issue is that states using exams developed for most students by one of the two consortia working on those tests will have to agree on a common set of acceptable test accommodations—adjustments made, in other words, to help students with disabilities access the test content as easily as classmates without disabilities.
  • Read-Aloud Debate Common accommodations include giving students additional time to take an exam, giving them a separate testing area, limiting questions to appearing one at a time, and adjusting the size of the typeface of the test. But one accommodation over which there is disagreement is whether, or how much, students should have test instructions or test content read aloud to them.
anonymous

Education Week: Common Core Found to Rank With Respected Standards - 0 views

www.edweek.org/...10standards.h31.html

common core standards ELA math international baccalaureate study EPIC

shared by anonymous on 31 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • The common-core standards
  • are generally aligned to the leading state standards, international standards, and university standards at the high-school-exit level, but are more rigorous in some content areas,
  • compared the content and curriculum standards for California and Massachusetts; the Texas College and Career Readiness Standards
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • the International Baccalaureate standards; and the Knowledge and Skills for University Success
  • The authors wanted to see how closely the content covered, the range of material included, and the depth of that material correlated with the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
  • alignment in the topics covered and the range of content between the common-core standards and the five others, the common core demanded a bit more cognitive complexity in some topics, particularly English/language arts, the report says.
  • The comparison standards lacked the depth of challenge in reading for informational texts, writing, and reading and writing for literacy, and, on the math side, in geometry. However, some of the rigor of the common core will be defined by examples of student work and can’t yet be measured for depth of knowledge required
  • some experts ask whether having comparable international, national, and state-to-state standards means that the common core makes it more likely a student will be prepared for college.
  • The study continues a line of evidence that the core standards that states have adopted have a solid research base and will help teachers and students,”
  • The next step for states is to ensure that during the implementation of the standards, teachers have the support and tools that they need to teach the new standards.”
  • the report is not meant to measure the quality of one group of standards over another, but rather to test the conclusion that the common-core standards place a strong emphasis on preparing students for postsecondary education by comparing the standards with others that also focus on college readiness.
  • States also shouldn’t focus on trying to make sure everything in their standards and all the details line up exactly with the common core as they do their own in-depth comparisons
  • Instead, they should look for broader correlations.
  • different standards have different purposes
  • the comparison and alignment of the “long-standing, well-respected” IB standards with the common core was particularly noteworthy, given that the common-core crafters have claimed that they are internationally benchmarked, and the results of the study could give some support to the claim.
  • Comparison and alignment with Texas, a state that didn’t adopt the common core, is also important,
  • Texas has been a leader in the establishment of college- and career-readiness standards, and overall received positive remarks for strong and in-depth coverage
  • what we see are findings that Texas College and Career Readiness Standards are found to be at or above the standards contained within the common-core state standards.
  • According to a related study EPIC released in August, most entry-level college professors found the common-core high school standards were relevant to college-level courses.
  • There’s a big danger if you look at these standards as everything you need to know to be ready because it’s not.
  • The common-core standards are a step in the right direction, but we still need more information on what makes a student college- and career-ready and still have a way to go toward creating stronger standards and assessments than [evaluating a student] by a cut score on a test.”
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