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"The school year isn't a series of sprints, but the way you forge your curriculum can make it feel that way. The most common way of structuring how you teach is by first assembling standards into units, then those units into lessons. You may use a backwards-design process (popularized by UbD and Grant Wiggins), where you start with what you want the students to understand, then decide what can act as evidence of that understanding, then finally design an assessment that provides the best opportunity to uncover what students know."

"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

This article addresses a few of my major concerns with the Common Core State Standards. Having them "unpacked" in state-specific or national Essential Maps does not instantly improve teachers' understanding of what students must know, understand, and be able to do. I believe district curriculum maps designed by teachers based on the CCSS and/or state Essential Maps must be a part of the synergy of curriculum design and instructional practice in schools.

" I say "rough sketch" because, let's be honest, Arizona doesn't look like that. But it's also a rough sketch because you need far more than three colors of white board marker to tell the full story of the states' collaborations to build both the PARCC and Smarter Balanced tests. Related Posts Why Indiana Is Scaling Back Participation In Common Core Testing Consortia PARCC Before Today's Governing Board Meeting: Five Things To Know About PARCC Ritz: Pausing Common Core Rollout Keeps Standards, Assessments Aligned Education Next: Common Core Is A Set Of Standards, Not Curriculum Minnesota Warns Parents To Prepare For Lower Scores On New Common Core Tests How Michigan Might Provide A Template For States Hoping To Leave Common Core How Science & Social Studies Teachers Are Transitioning To The Common Core Topics The story isn't only complex because of Indiana's recent "pausing" of both the Common Core's implementation and the state's participation in the PARCC consortium. (Though state officials have stopped attending governing board meetings, Indiana hasn't officially left the group, so Elle still colored them blue.) Explaining to me why she mixed her work with my work of art, Elle broke it down like this: 20 states and the District of Columbia participate in PARCC: Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Dakota*, Oklahoma** 24 states participate in Smarter Balanced: Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Delaware, Hawai'i, North Dakota*, Alaska*** * North Dakota participates in both PARCC and Smarter Balanced. ** Oklahoma announced this week it will develop its

"New tests being designed for students in nearly half the states in the country will take eight to 10 hours, depending on grade level, and schools will have a testing window of up to 20 days to administer them, according to guidance released today. The new information comes from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, one of the two big groups of states that are building tests in mathematics and English/language arts for the common standards. It answers one of the big, dangling questions that's attended the process of making these new tests: Given their promises to measure students' skills in a deeper, more nuanced way, partly through the use of extended performance tasks, just how long will these tests take?"

"As states press hard to ensure that all students graduate from high school ready for college or good jobs, many are hobbled by the very accountability systems they designed to leverage improvement, according to a report released Monday. The new study, by Achieve, argues that in reporting K-12 performance to the public, states often aren't including factors that matter the most in college readiness, such as the proportion of students who are completing rigorous high school courses, how well students are accumulating credits toward graduation, and whether they're earning college credit while in high school."

"Playing a math game designed to encourage practicing the basic "number sense" all children are born with improved the ability of young children in a study to do math, Johns Hopkins University researchers report. The study is due to be released in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology in July and is available online now. "

"Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium - 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."

Karin Hess Learning Progressions Designed for Use with the CCSS ELA

"Identifying Common Core in the Classroom CCSS Instructional Practice Guides: Common Core-aligned practice made clear These tools provide specific guidance for what the CCSS for ELA / Literacy and Mathematics look like in planning and practice. They are designed as developmental tools for teachers and those who support teachers. "

"This ASCD Study Guide is designed to enhance your understanding and application of the information contained in Teaching the Core Skills of Listening and Speaking, an ASCD book written by Erik Palmer and published in March 2014. You can use the study guide after you have read the book or as you finish each chapter. The study questions provided are not meant to cover all aspects of the book but rather to address specific ideas that might warrant further reflection. Most of the questions you can think about on your own, but you might consider pairing with a colleague or forming a study group with others who have read (or are reading) Teaching the Core Skills of Listening and Speaking."

"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. "

"What is the framework? A Framework for K-12 Science Education identifies the key scientific practices, concepts and ideas that all students should learn by the time they complete high school. It is intended as a guide for those who develop science education standards, those who design curricula and assessments, and others who work in K-12 science education."

"About the Mini-series This video mini-series has been designed to provide an efficient pathway for understanding and implementing the most significant shifts in English language arts and literacy instruction. Ranging from seven to ten minutes in length, each video tackles one important topic and then provides tools that educators can begin using in their classrooms immediately. The order in which the videos are watched is not critical, so please feel free to start with the one that seems the most intriguing."

"The Common Core has embedded within it some Big Ideas that shift the role of teachers to curriculum designers and managers of an inquiry process. How can project-based learning (PBL) help with this shift? "

"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. "

"As districts nationwide scramble to translate the Common Core State Standards into concrete curricula and lesson plans, Principal Sue DeVicariis of Kate Sessions Elementary School in San Diego considers herself ahead of the game. Her school is one of 342 nationwide to follow the Primary Years Program of the Swiss-based International Baccalaureate organization. Earlier this school year, Ms. DeVicariis and teachers met with colleagues across grades throughout the district to use IB inquiry-style units to create mathematics and English/language arts common-core curriculum units for San Diego."

"Math instructors at the Downers Grove high schools are developing a new curriculum based on the state's more difficult learning standards, one that will introduce some new courses. The Common Core Standards, which Illinois adopted in 2010, revamp learning expectations for students in English Language Arts and in Mathematics. Community High School District 99 officials plan to implement new curricula in the 2013-14 school year, while the statewide testing based on Common Core will start the following year"

"When the writers of the Next Generation Science Standards began sketching out a new vision for K-12 science education, they gave themselves a mandate: Develop standards with all students in mind, not just the high achievers already expected to excel in the subject."

"A standard is a statement that can be used to judge the quality of a mathematics curriculum or methods of evaluation. Thus, standards are statements about what is valued. -From 1989 standards released by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics "