Group items tagged

"The ultimate goal of professional development is improving students' learning, through the mechanism of improving instruction. This brief review of research on mathematics professional development summarizes what we know about the goals and characteristics of effective mathematics professional development for teachers. We intend this review to guide educators as they plan professional development."

"Achievethecore.org has ready-to-use modules include PowerPoints, videos, facilitator's instructions, and hands-on activities. Ideal for PD workshops, professional learning communities, and self-study."

"his month, we're covering Common Core: Where are we now? In this blog post, education leader Fred Ende suggests two facts he says cannot be ignored about the Common Core State Standards: they create a common language and support "true rigor." When the Common Core State Standards were released in June 2010, it set off a storm of activity. Many states chose to adopt and implement; some did not, and still others chose to create their own standards that were, in some ways, almost a "Common Core Lite" version. Regardless of the politics and personal viewpoints many have shared since then, two facts can't be ignored:"

"Two groups of states that are designing assessments for the new set of common academic standards have expanded their plans to provide instructional materials and professional development to help teachers make the transition to the new learning goals. "

"Gene Wilhoit served as chief state school officer in Arkansas and in Kentucky before the Council of Chief State School Officers asked him to assume the leadership of their association. Two decades earlier, Wilhoit had served as an active member of the board of an organization, the New Standards Project, that I had put together to develop new, internationally benchmarked student performance standards for the American states, along with a set of assessments set to those standards. After he took the helm as Executive Director of the CCSSO, Wilhoit led the successful joint effort of the country's chief state school officers and its governors to create the Common Core State Standards. In this multi-part interview, I talk with Wilhoit about why he thought it so important to create the standards and what he thinks will be needed to fully implement them. "

"A professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Education has launched a new free math curriculum designed to help engage students more deeply in math. Dubbed the "Week of Inspirational Math," the program is aimed at students in grades 5-9 and includes five lessons, one for each day in a week, featuring math problems designed to be fun and engaging along with videos with positive messages about math. Teachers using the curriculum will also be able to join a network offering additional support and resources throughout the school year. "We want to give kids inspirational math tasks that help them see math as a lovely subject of beautiful patterns and deep inquiry," said Jo Boaler, the program's designer, in a prepared statement. "And we want teachers to see what happens when kids are really engaged in math." Boaler said she hopes teachers will use the program at the beginning of the school year to give students a positive experience right off the bat and set the tone for the rest of the year, but the program can be used at any point. "The lessons address five key areas of math: geometry, algebra, numbers, patterns and connections," according to a news release. "The problems are so-called 'low floor, high ceiling' tasks that are accessible to all students but can be solved in different ways to challenge those just being introduced to the topics as well as high achievers. They also emphasize different messages: Mistakes help you grow, for example, and it's not how fast you complete a task that's important but how deeply you understand it." The Common Core-aligned program is the latest offering from YouCubed at Stanford, a program Boaler helped launch that aims to make new research into math learning accessible to teachers and parents. "We're researching and using new brain science to find out how best people learn," said Boaler, in a prepared statement. "Then, we're giving teachers things they can actually do in their classroom based on this research." The program

Well ... yes and no, according to a pair of new surveys from the RAND Corporation, a research and analysis firm. Teachers do seem to be getting a lot of professional development aligned to the common core in both English language arts and math. The problem is that it's not always focused on the topics that they say they need the most help on. Instead, teachers seem to be saying: "OK, we totally get that there are these new standards. We even kinda know what they want us to do differently. But we still need help digging into the pedagogy on some of the finer points."

" Published Online: February 29, 2012 Published in Print: February 29, 2012, as Reading Fiction Whole Reading Fiction Whole English teacher Ariel Sacks believes it's important to lead students to make their own discoveries in literature. -Emile Wamsteker A language arts teacher uses a 'whole novels' approach to give her students an authentic literary experience. By Ariel Sacks Article Tools PrintPrinter-Friendly EmailEmail Article ReprintReprints CommentsComments Literary fiction is an art that seeks to create an immersive experience for the reader, but we often don't approach it that way with our students. We parcel out books in pieces and ask students to analyze them along the way without the ability to understand a work in its entirety. This is sort of like asking students to interpret a corner of a painting. Without the entire context, it lacks meaning and can become frustrating."