Standards and Disciplines

"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. "

"Even before the invention of photography, certain images have gained iconic status in human culture. Our history and art textbooks are full of examples and many of them are etched in our memories. 440px-Join_or_DieBenjamin Franklin's "Join or Die" snake image, said to be the first American political cartoon, originally appeared during the French and Indian War, was repurposed by Paul Revere in 1775, and continues to be a powerful representation of the movement toward U.S. independence and nationhood. More recent visual texts, from the Hindenburg disaster, to Iwo Jima, to MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech, to the haunting images of September 11, help us understand what "iconic" means in terms of cultural memory and messaging."

"Having the "same" text written for different levels of English comprehension can be a life-saver for a multi-level class of English Language Learners or for a teacher with a mainstream class that includes some students that are facing other challenges. They can be an important tool for differentiation."

"Karl Nelson is the director of the Digital Learning Department for the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI). In this Q&A, he talks about how his state is using open educational resources (OER) to help support Common Core State Standards. The OSPI's OER Project was launched in 2012, when the Washington Legislature passed HB 2337. According to Nelson, the legislature saw OER as a chance to both save districts money and improve instructional material quality, so it directed OSPI to identify a library of openly licensed courseware aligned with the state standards. The legislature also asked OSPI to provide guidance to school districts using OERs."

"By setting up ways to get frequent feedback from students' works in progress, we can find out what they need-before it's too late. Several years ago, I decided that if I were going to spend time writing comments on my students' writing work or on assignments connected to their in-class reading, those comments had to do more than justify a grade. They had to give targeted feedback that would show students how to improve the quality of their work. I'd been finding the hours I spent writing feedback on students' work discouraging. For one thing, students didn't pay attention to my comments, and, for another, the quality of their work wasn't improving. A change in how I responded to their work was necessary. If I wanted my comments to fuel improvement, I realized, I had to build in time for learners to revise their work after receiving my suggestions. Not only did I change the timing of my feedback, but I also streamlined my process of writing comments, allowing myself more time to shift instruction in response to what I'd learned from reviewing work"

"With students gone for the day, 6th grade teachers Joy Ford and Ryan Rusk sat in a classroom discussing the Latin root temp. After determining that "contemporary" and "temporary" share the root, which refers to time, the two Woodlawn Elementary teachers then turned to the word "temptation." "I'm tempted to eat this chocolate," said Ford. "That doesn't have to do with time." "But if I'm tempted, I want it now," responded Rusk. "So could it?" Along with a half-dozen other K-6 teachers, the two were participating in a study group in which they meet weekly to learn how to incorporate Greek and Latin roots into their daily instruction. The group was doing a "word sort" activity from the book Greek and Latin Roots: Keys to Vocabulary Building."

"RACE is the acronym we've adopted school-wide to help unify our teaching language and help students develop good answers. The thought is that even kindergarteners can start restating questions verbally and teachers in the youngest grades can use the vocabulary when they are modeling."

"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."

The Common Core was supposed to fix this. Its backers hoped that all states would insist that their students learn enough to be prepared for college when they graduated from high school. But a recent analysis of all the new tests administered by states in 2015, after the adoption of the Common Core, shows that most states are still not expecting their students to be on a college-ready trajectory, and that academic expectations continue to differ even among the 45 states that adopted the new standards.

"In response, we asked her if she was willing to send us her argument-writing unit so we could share it with other teachers. We're pleased to publish it below, including all of her handouts and recommended videos embedded. And, of course, all students age 13 to 19 can find this year's contest here."

Lately, I've been working with teachers on how to help students write more effective paragraphs and essays. We have found that students can quickly master Step 1-applying the three rules for determining if a statement is an argument or not (it includes debatable/arguable words; it includes cause/effect language, or it raises "How" or "Why" questions). But they need more scaffolding to move from Step 2 to Step 3.

:One of the things students struggle with the most - and it's relevant to every grade and subject - is distinguishing between argument and evidence. This problem manifests itself in both reading and writing. In this article, I want to briefly highlight these two key Common Core ELA-Literacy elements and point you to more in-depth discussion and resources at my Literacy Cookbook blog.

Grammar instruction may have waned in some classrooms starting in the early 2000s, largely because the high-stakes tests required by the No Child Left Behind law didn't assess grammar specifically. But with most states now using the Common Core State Standards, there's some thought that grammar is making a comeback-along with perennial debates about how best to teach it. "We are asking kids to dive into complex texts and understand them, so we need to teach them how to read complex sentences," said Chris Hayes, a veteran elementary teacher in Washoe County, Nev. And that requires deep knowledge of grammar.

It's always a little disconcerting when your students aren't understanding an objective you feel you've taught. It's even more frustrating when materials to support that Common Core State Standard don't seem to exist in read-to-use format anywhere. This is the case with our objective on writing structure in third grade. After a week of getting nowhere, I wrote some paragraphs, armed my kids with highlighters, and broke out the trusted flip book template for a lesson that finally connected.

"WHAT MAKES THE BAD TIMES UNIQUE ? THE BAD TIMES is the first graphic novel to be produced on the topic of the Great Hunger. Although it is aimed at young readers, like all graphic novels, it can be read and appreciated by people aged from 8 to 80. More than simply telling a good story based on a tragic event in Irish history, THE BAD TIMES contains many teachable and relatable moments that can introduce young people to issues that are relevant today - concerning social justice, human rights, emigration and dislocation, and love and humanity in the midst of catastrophe. To assist educators, a number of key curriculum questions have been created by Dr. Anne Dichele of Quinnipiac University and can be found HERE. Additionally, historical background and primary sources have been provided by Professor Christine Kinealy."

"In the last year, there's been quite a bit of chatter about whether textbooks that claim to be aligned to the common-core standards really do meet that mark. A Consumer Reports-style review of K-8 math materials found that nearly all of the textbook series analyzed were out of sync with the common-core standards (though that review has since come under fire and been revamped). Other researchers have called claims of common-core alignment a 'sham.'"

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."

"Common Core Basics Teaching Channel Video" - Simplifying Text Complexity"

High school testing is on the brink of a profound shift, as states increasingly choose college-entrance exams to measure achievement. The new federal education law invites that change, but it comes with some big caution signs and unanswered questions.