Skip to main content

Home/ educators/ Group items tagged national standards

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Vicki Davis

The School Standards Debate: Time for Tech To Weigh In | Tech.pinions - Perspective, In... - 3 views

  •  
    There are many nations (like Finland) who have national standards but local flexibility. This technologist writes an article supporting Common Core while saying that many don't understand what they contain. Honestly, I see another person who hasn't read some of them. My biggest issue is - who controls the standards and how can they be revised in the future.In a country showing a poor ability to keep politicians from writing standards, by centralizing they become easy target to the whims and sways of the pendulum of politics in the US. That said, I think national standards are likely inevitable.I just hope they put enough different people onto Common Core that group think doesn't send us in a very bad direction. If we have national standards and make it there, they become very important to our future as a country.
Suzie Nestico

Five Myths About the Common Core - 8 views

  • Myth #1 The Common Core State Standards are a national curriculum.
  • Myth #2 The Common Core State Standards are an Obama administration initiative.
  • Myth #3 The Common Core standards represent a modest change from current practice.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Myth #4 States cannot implement the Common Core standards in the current budget climate.
  • Myth #5 The Common Core State Standards will transform schools.
  • Standards are not curriculum: standards spell out what students should know and be able to do at the end of a year; curriculum defines the specific course of study—the scope and sequence—that will enable students to meet standards.
  • States are building the assessments, and once the assessments are in place, they will be administered and operated by states. They are not federal tests.
  • In preparation for adoption of the Common Core standards, several states conducted analyses that found considerable alignment between them and their current standards
    • Suzie Nestico
       
      Pennsylvania has same findinggs in its analysis of alignment of PA academic standards - closely aligned, ELA more than Math.
  • And officials in 76 percent of districts in Common Core states said in a survey released in September 2011 by the Center on Education Policy that inadequate funds for implementation was a major challenge.
  • But to have an effect on the day-to-day interaction between students and teachers, and thus improve learning, states and districts will have to implement the standards. That will require changes in curricula and assessments to align with the standards, professional development to ensure that teachers know what they are expected to teach, and ultimately, changes in teacher education so that all teachers have the capability to teach all students to the standards. The standards are only the first step on the road to higher levels of learning.
  •  
    What I've encountered most in dealing with colleagues is the fear and the notion that this is just another five to ten year fad in education. It is important first to help others understand CCSS are not a quick-fix or an answer. In some ways, CCSS take us back to what good teaching looks. Ultimately, aside from the budgetary concerns with implementation, perhaps the other greatest struggle here will be the state-level assessment of the CCSS. In order for states to get it right, there needs to adequate time devoted to determining adequate assessment, not drill-and-kill. Broad, interconnected, higher-order thinking cannot be bubbled-in. Period.
Cara Whitehead

Educational Standards Correlations - 11 views

  •  
    VocabularySpellingCity provides the following sets of correlations to standards: U.S. Standards by State Common Core Standards for each States' Implementation Australian Standards by State Canadian Standards by Province English National Curriculum Standards
Tony Richards

The Atlantic Online | January/February 2010 | What Makes a Great Teacher? | Amanda Ripley - 14 views

  •  
    "What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo
Vicki Davis

Schools Matter: Resolution submitted to NCTE opposing common core standards and nationa... - 4 views

  •  
    A resolution being submitted to the National Council of Teachers of English blaming current US problems on poverty not the education system. (On a note from me: The country is crying out for change in education. Change can be done to you or by you. To defiantly state there are no problems is to deny the truth. Every system has issues. No school is perfect. But right now, the national opinion is that there are problems. I'd be offering solutions you can live with or live with the solutions handed down to you by a clueless bureaucrat who only was in a classroom when he/she was a child. The one thing that is an advantage is that when industries standardize, we often see innovation. How much time is wasted in aligning with 50 different state standards?))
Vicki Davis

ISTE | Navigate the Digital Rapids - 10 views

  •  
    Navigating the Digital Rapids written by Julie Lindsay and I about 21st Century Skills and @netgened and @digiteen. One of the points in this article, I'd like to repeat on this bookmark and my blog: "Teachers who avoid customization often claim they cannot customize and meet standards at the same time. But meeting standardized learning outcomes does not mean you have to standardize the process. In fact, if you involve students in student-centered, globally connected projects, each student's learning experience becomes markedly different, and each classroom becomes as unique as the students and teachers who learn there. A customized classroom and national standards can coexist and lead to rich learning." Read and let me know if you have questions!
Julie Altmark

Education World ® - Curriculum: National and State Standards - 8 views

  •  
    National Standards /COS
Vicki Davis

Global education survey puts Shanghai on top - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

  •  
    Remember one thing as you look at these scores - not all students are tested in many countries and in many countries only the brightest go to school. In my opinion, these tests have some serious flaws. For example, I don't play cricket - my scores would be low -- I don't know that I'm so upset about that. While math, science, and reading are important -- standards vary greatly between countries -- so unless we're going to prep for PISA scores. Also on another note -- comparing "Shanghai to nations makes me wonder - I'm sure there are certain cities in the US that would do very well on such a test. Anyway, I want to look deeper, but I think before we rattle cages and get too upset, the report should be looked at deeply but not only the report - but the test. I remember getting upset that my kindergartener scored in the 60th percentile on "environment" only to see that he missed that a judge was supposed to be a guy in a grey wig (who does that) and couldn't identify a subway turnstile (we live in a town of 5,000). Since that time, I always want to see the test. Lots of people will be talking about this so look at it and be prepared to answer questions. This is the post from Aljazeera so you can see what other countries are saying about the report. "Asian countries have topped the rnakings in a global education report which evaluates the knowledge and skills of 15 and 16-year-olds around the world. The report by Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), published on Tuesday, shows that children from Asian nations continue to outshine their western counterparts in maths, science and reading. The city of Shanghai topped the table in the three-yearly reported which tested more than 510,000 students in 65 countries. Children in Shanghai were, on average, the equivalent of nearly three years of schooling ahead of the majority of nations tested."
Jeff Johnson

Education Standards, Test Scores Linked - 0 views

  •  
    Five states that made bigger strides than Iowa on national test scores had much tougher standards for what children should learn in school, according to a new study.
Fabian Aguilar

What Do School Tests Measure? - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com - 1 views

  • According to a New York Times analysis, New York City students have steadily improved their performance on statewide tests since Mayor Michael Bloomberg took control of the public schools seven years ago.
  • Critics say the results are proof only that it is possible to “teach to the test.” What do the results mean? Are tests a good way to prepare students for future success?
  • Tests covering what students were expected to learn (guided by an agreed-upon curriculum) serve a useful purpose — to provide evidence of student effort, of student learning, of what teachers taught, and of what teachers may have failed to teach.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • More serious questions arise about “teaching to the test.” If the test requires students to do something academically valuable — to demonstrate comprehension of high quality reading passages at an appropriate level of complexity and difficulty for the students’ grade, for example — then, of course, “teaching to the test” is appropriate.
  • Reading is the crucial subject in the curriculum, affecting all the others, as we know.
  • An almost exclusive focus on raising test scores usually leads to teaching to the test, denies rich academic content and fails to promote the pleasure in learning, and to motivate students to take responsibility for their own learning, behavior, discipline and perseverance to succeed in school and in life.
  • Test driven, or force-fed, learning can not enrich and promote the traits necessary for life success. Indeed, it is dangerous to focus on raising test scores without reducing school drop out, crime and dependency rates, or improving the quality of the workforce and community life.
  • Students, families and groups that have been marginalized in the past are hurt most when the true purposes of education are not addressed.
  • lein. Mayor Bloomberg claims that more than two-thirds of the city’s students are now proficient readers. But, according to federal education officials, only 25 percent cleared the proficient-achievement hurdle after taking the National Assessment of Education Progress, a more reliable and secure test in 2007.
  • The major lesson is that officials in all states — from New York to Mississippi — have succumbed to heavy political pressure to somehow show progress. They lower the proficiency bar, dumb down tests and distribute curricular guides to teachers filled with study questions that mirror state exams.
  • This is why the Obama administration has nudged 47 states to come around the table to define what a proficient student truly knows.
  • Test score gains among New York City students are important because research finds that how well one performs on cognitive tests matters more to one’s life chances than ever before. Mastery of reading and math, in particular, are significant because they provide the gateway to higher learning and critical thinking.
  • First, just because students are trained to do well on a particular test doesn’t mean they’ve mastered certain skills.
  • Second, whatever the test score results, children in high poverty schools like the Promise Academy are still cut off from networks of students, and students’ parents, who can ease access to employment.
  • Reliable and valid standardized tests can be one way to measure what some students have learned. Although they may be indicators of future academic success, they don’t “prepare” students for future success.
  • Since standardized testing can accurately assess the “whole” student, low test scores can be a real indicator of student knowledge and deficiencies.
  • Many teachers at high-performing, high-poverty schools have said they use student test scores as diagnostic tools to address student weaknesses and raise achievement.
  • The bigger problem with standardized tests is their emphasis on the achievement of only minimal proficiency.
  • While it is imperative that even the least accomplished students have sufficient reading and calculating skills to become self-supporting, these are nonetheless the students with, overall, the fewest opportunities in the working world.
  • Regardless of how high or low we choose to set the proficiency bar, standardized test scores are the most objective and best way of measuring it.
  • The gap between proficiency and true comprehension would be especially wide in the case of the brightest students. These would be the ones least well-served by high-stakes testing.
David Yaggi

Common Core State Standards Initiative | Home - 8 views

  •  
    The "official" Common Core site. The "Final" version was released today.
Dave Truss

ISTE NETS e-Portfolio Templates - 23 views

  •  
    ISTE's National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers Admin Students
Adrienne Michetti

International Engagement Through Education: Remarks by Secretary Arne Duncan at the Cou... - 6 views

  • two important trends that inform our drive to transform education in America. The first is increased international competition. The second is increased international collaboration
  • cultural awareness of all our students
  • education reform
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • We haven't been compelled to meet our global neighbors on their own terms, and learn about their histories, values and viewpoints. I am worried that in this interconnected world, our country risks being disconnected from the contributions of other countries and cultures. Through education and exchange, we can become better collaborators and competitors in the global economy
  • The President said that "education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century."
  • In this way, Secretary Clinton said, "We will exercise American leadership to build partnerships and solve problems that no nation can solve on its own." This view of smart power and U.S. leadership applies to the work of improving educational attainment and partnerships around the globe.
  • International collaboration cuts across nearly every office in our agency
  • Such collaboration can inform and strengthen our reform efforts nationally, even as it helps improve standards of teaching and learning—and fosters understanding—internationally.
  • We must improve language learning and international education at all levels if our nation is to continue to lead in the global economy; to help bring security and stability to the world; and to build stronger and more productive ties with our neighbors.
  • we have never been more aware of the value of a multi-literate, multi-lingual society: a society that can appreciate all that makes other cultures and nations distinctive, even as it embraces all that they have in common.
  •  
    Speech given by Arne Duncan, May 17, 2010 regarding international collaboration and engagement in US Education
Vicki Davis

Civil War Lesson Plans - 11 views

  •  
    When you're studying a particular subject, it makes sense to dig deeper. For example, the Civil War Trust has some excellent lesson plans on the Civil War as well as a field trip planner, glossary of civil war terms, civil war coloring book, and more. If you cover the civil war in the US, you'll want to visit this site. If you're studying anything, try searching for the word "lesson plans" in quotes along with the topic with a plus like +"civil war" and you'll be amazed at the results. Many of them align with standards from the states or National Council for Social Studies.
Vicki Davis

4liters - 0 views

  •  
    Students and teachers are taking the 4 liter challenge. Here's the curriculum and information to bring resources and instruction to children of all ages. "To make the 4 Liter Challenge an even more enriching experience, we've created a free curriculum that introduces themes of water, poverty and human rights to any 7-12th grade classroom. The 4L Curriculum is multidisciplinary and designed to align with national standards. It's built on an innovative "See, Judge, Act" model and will greatly enhance your students' 4L Challenge."
Jeff Johnson

Digital citizenship curriculum encourages students to be good 'digital citizens' - 0 views

  •  
    Students interact with music, movies, software, and other digital content every day-but many don't fully understand the rules surrounding the appropriate use of these materials, or why this should even matter. To help teach students about intellectual property rights and encourage them to become good "digital citizens," software giant Microsoft Corp. has unveiled a free curriculum that offers cross-curricular classroom activities aligned with national standards. The Digital Citizenship and Creative Content program was designed for students in grades 8-10 but can be adapted for use in grades 6-12, Microsoft says. In one unit, students are given a scenario in which a high school sponsors a school-wide Battle of the Bands. A student not involved in the production decides to videotape and sell copies of the show to students and family members. Later, one of the performers ("Johnny") learns his image has been co-opted by the maker of a video game without his permission. Students research intellectual property laws to see who owns the "rights" to the Battle of the Bands as a whole, as well as the rights of individual performers, to determine three or four steps that Johnny can take. http://digitalcitizenshiped.com
Ted Sakshaug

Lure of the Labyrinth - 11 views

  •  
    Lure of the Labyrinth is a digital game for middle-school pre-algebra students. It includes a wealth of intriguing math-based puzzles wrapped into an exciting narrative game in which students work to find their lost pet - and save the world from monsters! Linked to both national and state mathematics standards, the game gives students a chance to actually think like mathematicians.
Bret Willhoit

The Children Must Play - 20 views

  • Not only do Finnish educational authorities provide students with far more recess than their U.S. counterparts—75 minutes a day in Finnish elementary schools versus an average of 27 minutes in the U.S.—but they also mandate lots of arts and crafts, more learning by doing, rigorous standards for teacher certification, higher teacher pay, and attractive working conditions.
  • it had to modernize its economy and could only do so by first improving its schools. To that end, the government agreed to reduce class size, boost teacher pay, and require that, by 1979, all teachers complete a rigorous master’s program.
  • Finnish teachers earn very competitive salaries: High school teachers with 15 years of experience make 102 percent of what their fellow university graduates do. In the United States, by contrast, they earn just 65 percent.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Finnish authorities haven’t outsourced school management to for-profit or non-profit organizations, implemented merit pay, or ranked teachers and schools according to test results, they’ve made excellent use of business strategies. They’ve won the war for talent by making teaching so appealing. In choosing principals, superintendents, and policymakers from inside the education world rather than looking outside it, Finnish authorities have likewise taken a page from the corporate playbook: Great organizations, as the business historian Alfred Chandler documented, cultivate talent from within. Of the many officials I interviewed at the Finnish Ministry of Education, the National Board of Education, the Education Evaluation Council, and the Helsinki Department of Education, all had been teachers for at least four years.
  • Finland’s school system unique is that the country has deliberately rejected the prevailing standardization movement
  • Since 1985, students have not been tracked (or grouped by ability) until the tenth grade
  • The Finnish approach to pedagogy is also distinct
Dennis OConnor

The class was what I needed to help me get focused for school! « Random Thoug... - 0 views

  • Learn how to locate authentic digital primary sources in multiple formats to enhance your curriculum. Develop age appropriate learning activities that promote higher level questioning and critical thinking skills while adding excitement to student learning through engaging activities. The course is especially helpful for teachers of AP classes, teachers addressing state and national standards requiring the use of primary sources, and teachers working with National History Day activities. Materials fromTPS Direct, the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources professional development program, will be incorporated in the class.
  •  
    Primary Sources, Where have you been? Why have I never used primary sources? I didn't use them because I didn't know where to find the resources.I never considered all of the possibilities.
1 - 20 of 21 Next ›
Showing 20 items per page