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Title: Reaching the Goal:  The Applicability and Importance of the Common Core State Standards to College and Career Readiness.Source: EPIC Educational Policy Improvement CenterAuthors: David Conley et al A new analysis from Educational Policy improvement Center (EPIC) indicates that mastering the Common Core Standards have the baseline knowledge and skills necessary for college work.

The Common Core organization wants to improve education in America. To do so, they're "promoting programs, policies, and initiatives at the local, state, and federal levels that provide students with challenging, rigorous instruction in the full range of liberal arts and sciences."

The truth about how to create sustainable conditions for powerful teaching and learning is bred in the bones of schools rather than the brains of researchers or policy-makers. Motivated by this belief, new and restructuring schools that aim to incorporate the CES Common Principles forge connections with other Coalition schools. They rely on each other for support, mutual learning, and perspective.

Facebook usage in academic work is going up! Excerpt: "The idea of students wanting professors to integrate more technology use into the classroom was a common takeaway from the survey. After e-mail, learning-management systems and e-textbooks were the two technologies that students wanted instructors to use more frequently, according to the survey. Learning-management systems are used by 73 percent of students, and e-books or e-textbooks by 57 percent."

"In fact, one of the benefits of the assessment movement is that rigorous analysis of data about student engagement and learning is showing precisely what works and what doesn't. For example, data from the National Survey of Student Engagement have led to the identification of 10 "high-impact practices" that demonstrably increase student engagement, retention, and graduation rates. They are: first-year seminars and experiences; common intellectual experiences; learning communities; writing-intensive courses; collaborative assignments and projects; undergraduate research; diversity/global learning; service and community-based learning; internships; and capstone courses and projects."

By Benedict Carey in the Health section, The New York Times, September 6, 2010. The author shares findings that contradict common knowledge about study habits. Techniques that have had proven success in studies are alternating study environments, mixing content, spacing study sessions and self-testing.

Video on wikis in plain English by Common Craft at YouTube

Official website. Includes information about state common core performance standards.

"Our organization offers its members a network of individuals, institutions, and corporations united by the common goal of quantitative literacy for all citizens." The website includes both teaching resources and "quantitative literacy" projects.

The Common Core State Standards Initiaitive is a state-led efford coordinated by the National Governors Association for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers

Randy Bass's home blog page on social pedagogies

Absolutely fabulous video (6 minutes) on Connected Learning and how we must change the outcomes based focus of education to awaken the curiosity of each learner and engage with them in learning how to learn given the distribution of resources, ideas, experts, etc. while preserving the learners' autonomy, access to diversity, openness to others for learning, interactivity with similar and diverse co-learners, etc. Film by Nic Askew at Soulbiographies.com interviewing McArthur Foundation person and two professors of education

Students can use this application and apply to as many participating schools (see list of Member Colleges and Universities) as they care to.