Standards and Disciplines

"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."

" FINALmyON.jpg Through myON, Oregon students have access to about 4,100 books for free until September 15. Print Laura Frazier, The Oregonian By Laura Frazier, The Oregonian Email the author | Follow on Twitter on July 04, 2013 at 9:00 AM, updated July 04, 2013 at 9:06 AM Email For the first time this summer, all Oregon students have free access to more than 4,100 digital children's books through a partnership with the Oregon Department of Education and myON, an online library collection geared toward students. "

"Why does this matter? I'm largely okay with the Common Core Standards. Anyone who reads me regularly already knows this. There are limitations, sure, but by and large, they are better than previous individual state standards that, for the most part, prepare children for 1992, but aren't so great at preparing them for 2025."

"Cooks use math to make beautiful food all the time: Slicing eight perfect pieces of pie or doubling a recipe requires basic knowledge of fractions, for example. But how many cooks think about using beautiful food to illustrate the math itself? Lenore M. Edman and Windell H. Oskay of the blog do. Feast your eyes on their latest work, "Sconic Sections," pictured above."

"I'll admit it: I was skeptical of how "creative-thinking" strategies in math would go over with my 4th grade enrichment students. I see these students just once a week in pull-out groups, so every lesson counts. And I was nervous that this one might be a complete disaster."

" 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

"The Common Core's "six shifts in literacy," or the big ways in which the standards aim to overhaul teaching, can be boiled down a la Michael Pollan: Read complex texts. Mostly nonfiction. Very closely. Through that close reading, teachers get clear opportunities to foster critical thinking. Attempting to help students access texts, previous standards and curricula in many states have focused on previewing the material, skimming it, and connecting it to the outside world, the self, and other texts - at best, achieving a rich holistic understanding, and at worst, dancing around the challenges posed by the author's actual words."

"There are some basic properties of numbers any 3rd grader can tell you: Each number is represented by a single symbol, and followed by a single successor. Multiplication makes a number bigger; division makes it smaller. The problem is, none of those qualities-true of whole numbers-is true when it comes to fractions, one of the most chronically troublesome basic mathematics areas for children and adults alike. Now, as the Common Core State Standards push for earlier and deeper understanding of fractions, researchers and teachers are exploring ways to ensure students learn more than a sliver of the fractions pie."

"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. "

"Toolkit for Evaluating the Alignment of Materials Evaluating and Developing Core Aligned Materials"

"Whenever I take a new teacher to observe a veteran teacher, I'm surprised at what they notice. We could have observed the most impressive lesson ever, but without fail the new teachers notice the little things in the classroom: the way the chairs are set up, the routine the teacher has established for collecting work, the posters on the wall. They inherently know that seemingly small details can make or break teachers."