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Troy Patterson

The Test of the Common Core | E. D. Hirsch, Jr. - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...mmon-core-tests_b_3824859.html

msm258 commoncore

shared by Troy Patterson on 12 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Here's the follow-up post to "Why I'm For the Common Core." It explains why we should be leery of the forthcoming "core-aligned" tests -- especially those in English Language Arts that people are rightly anxious about.
  • These tests could endanger the promise of the Common Core.
  • The first thing I'd want to do if I were younger would be to launch an effective court challenge to value-added teacher evaluations on the basis of test scores in reading comprehension. The value-added approach to teacher evaluation in reading is unsound both technically and in its curriculum-narrowing effects. The connection between job ratings and tests in ELA has been a disaster for education.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • My analysis of them showed what anyone immersed in reading research would have predicted: The value-added data are modestly stable for math, but are fuzzy and unreliable for reading.
  • Math tests are based on the school curriculum. What a teacher does in the math classroom affects student test scores. But reading-comprehension tests are not based on the school curriculum. (How could they be if there's no set curriculum?) Rather, they are based on the general knowledge that students have gained over their life span from all sources -- most of them outside the school.
  • The whole project is unfair to teachers, ill-conceived, and educationally disastrous. The teacher-rating scheme has usurped huge amounts of teaching time in anxious test-prep. Paradoxically, the evidence shows that test-prep ceases to be effective after about six lessons.
  • the inadequate theories of reading-comprehension that have dominated the schools -- mainly the unfounded theory that, when students reach a certain level of "reading skill," they can read anything at that level.
  • The Common Core-aligned tests of reading comprehension will naturally contain text passages and questions about those passages. To the extent such tests claim to assess "critical thinking" and "general" reading-comprehension skill, we should hold on to our wallets. They will be only rough indexes of reading ability -- probably no better than the perfectly adequate and well-validated reading tests they mean to replace.
  • The solution to the test-prep conundrum is this: First, institute in every participating state the specific and coherent curriculum that the Common Core Standards explicitly call for. (It's passing odd to introduce "Common Core" tests before there's an actual core to be tested.)
Ron King

Common Core Math Tools via NCTM - 0 views

www.nctm.org/...content.aspx

shared by Ron King on 13 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Ron King on 13 Apr 13
     
    Core Math Tools is a downloadable suite of interactive software tools for algebra and functions, geometry and trigonometry, and statistics and probability. The tools are appropriate for use with any high school mathematics curriculum and compatible with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics in terms of content and mathematical practices. Java required.
Ron King

In Common Core, Teachers See Interdisciplinary Opportunities - 0 views

www.edweek.org/...o_interdisciplinary_units.html

shared by Ron King on 20 Mar 13 - No Cached
  • Ron King on 20 Mar 13
     
    Educators around the country are exploring innovative ways to teach the new common-core literacy standards, and some are calling attention to an approach they say is working well: interdisciplinary thematic units.
Ron King

CCSS Toolbox - 1 views

ccsstoolbox.agilemind.com/index_flash.html

shared by Ron King on 23 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Ron King on 23 Apr 13
     
    T he Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), the product of a major, multiyear state-led initiative coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), present an extraordinary opportunity for districts across the country to move to higher levels of achievement for all students. These rigorous standards will require that districts reexamine what it means for all students to understand and to do mathematics in ways that prepare them for success in a rapidly changing world.
Ron King

Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium - 0 views

www.smarterbalanced.org

shared by Ron King on 23 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Ron King on 23 Apr 13
     
    Smarter Balanced is a state-led consortium developing assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards in English language arts/literacy and mathematics that are designed to help prepare all students to graduate high school college- and career-ready.
Ron King

The break-things-into-bits mistake we have been making in education for centuries - hap... - 0 views

grantwiggins.wordpress.com/...happening-today-with-standards

shared by Ron King on 29 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Ron King on 29 Apr 13
     
    In the just-released Math Publisher's Criteria document on the Common Core Standards, the authors say this about (bad) curricular decision-making: "'Fragmenting the Standards into individual standards, or individual bits of standards … produces a sum of parts that is decidedly less than the whole' (Appendix from the K-8 Publishers' Criteria). Breaking down standards poses a threat to the focus and coherence of the Standards. It is sometimes helpful or necessary to isolate a part of a compound standard for instruction or assessment, but not always, and not at the expense of the Standards as a whole.
Ron King

Mathematics Assessment Project - 0 views

map.mathshell.org/...tasks.php

shared by Ron King on 22 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Ron King on 22 Feb 12
     
    The project is working to design and develop well-engineered assessment tools to support US schools in implementing the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS).
Ron King

The Door to Common Core - 0 views

www.middleweb.com/...the-door-to-common-core-math-2

shared by Ron King on 07 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Ron King on 07 Oct 13
     
    Middle school math teachers have a challenge-they need to help students become mathematical thinkers who truly understand concepts and don't just memorize. One way we recommend doing this is by using the new Standards for Mathematical Practice (SMP) to help students build a foundation of thinking and communicating math. We find it most helpful to think of the standards as a door.
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