Understanding the Common Core Standards: What they are - What they are not.

Brugioni, Angela

Understanding the Common Core Standards. (2014). Education Digest, 79(8), 16-21.

ET – Educational Theory and Practice ET – Restructuring  ET – Standards-based Education  ET – Government and Professions 

CA- Curriculum Assessment CA – Common Core Assessments

This article is handy fact sheet for the Common Core State Standards. Along with describing the Common Core and how they are intended to work in conjunction with State mandated curriculum this article explains misconceptions surrounding the Common Core. Being new to the Common Core, I had wondered why they only included language arts and math standards. There is a separate but similar initiative that was developed for science and engineering and released in 2013 called the Next Generation Science Standards. As far as the role of the government in all of this, they have provided funds for the development of “next-generation” assessments aligned with Common Core standards, which are expected for release in 2014-15. Behind the opposition to Common Core are the Tea Party and Libertarians who “disapprove of the idea of national standards in the belief that educational decisions are rightfully made by parents and local communities.” In addition some progressive educators believe that “Common Core will impose more test-driven accountability and open the door to corporate influence over education.”


This is a worthwhile read for those new to Common Core, or looking for clarification on who is behind the initiative and what the process has been for its application. I would have actually liked it to be longer and more detailed, but I feel like a lot is explained in a short few segments. The article is also biased towards the Common Core, but there is a fair assessment included of the challenges faced by schools for implementation in terms of cost, administrative duties and obligations, technology needs, training of staff, etc.

Standards: Who, What, Where, and Why

Jolene Nechiporenko

ET, CA

McClure, p. (2005). Where standards com from. Theory into practice, 4(1),4-10.
     doi:  10.1207/s15430421tip4401_2



Have you ever wondered where educational standards come from?  If so, start by reading this article in which the author does a nice job of simplifying and explaining the history and current development of standards. 

She explains that common standards are "rooted in the struggle for equal education."  Keep in mind that several different factors can contribute to inequality: socioeconomic conditions, minorities, etc.

In the early 1990s an achievement gas was recognized and addressed by a congressionally mandated study that suggested "There was a clear difference in standards, expectations, and curriculum" between states and schools.

in 1993 federal grants were given to state departments to develop curriculum and/or content standards.

In 1995 brought about the reform of professional development and teaching.  "The inequalities in the delivery of funding of educational and the achievement gasp between school and among groups of students could not be seriously addressed without setting uniform guidelines and regulations for the teaching profession.

McClure also mentions the implementation of Title 1 programs.

3 Big Shifts That Our Schools Need to Make

Shannon Greene

CA

S McLeod. (2013, October 23). 3 big shifts, 8 building blocks, and some guiding questions.
[Web log comment]. Retrieved fromhttp://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/

http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/resources/3-big-shifts-8-building-blocks-and-some-guiding-questions

Summary: A summary of concrete changes in emphasis that schools could make now to positively impact the learning environment. The 3 big shifts are from low-level thinking to high-level thinking, from analog to digital, and from teacher-directed to student-directed. The 8 building blocks contain subjects such as project- and inquiry-based learning environment; authentic, real-world work; and online communities of interest that supplement and augment more-traditional learning communities.

Evaluation: Excellent and succinct, this article, particularly the 3 big shifts and 8 building blocks, includes many of the subjects discussed in the curriculum of 250 Instructional Design class. The guiding questions would be useful for both professional development and strategic planning discussions as well as daily curriculum planning guides.

Raising the Bar; Education

Besich, Lauren

Raising the bar; education. (2013, Jun 15). The Economist, 407, 30. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/docview/1368124428?accountid=10361 

ET

Summary

This article published in The Economist explains in basic terms the relationship between federal and state governments in relation to state standards.  Until the recent adoption of the Common Core State Standards, each state set their own standards that determined student proficiency of Math and English skills, however, if states failed to produced students who didn’t measure up to national standards, they were punished.  In efforts to bridge this gap, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers have pushed to implement Common Core State Standards in Math and English.  So far, 45 states have agreed to adopt these “more rigorous” standards, which will ideally streamline the education of students in those states.  The article covers some complaints from both ends of the political spectrum, but the main question still stands:  Will tougher standards produce smarter students?

Evaluation

This article helped me to better understand the reasoning behind the push for Common Core Standards.  The National Centre for Educational statistics (NCES), which is a federal body, saw a discrepancy between what states deem “proficient,” and what states deem “proficient.”  Obviously that is a problem, so the government wants to fix the problem.  As with any government-led initiative to solve a problem, there are critics.  I believe we will only see how well Common Core works after an entire generation of students passes through the education system with these new standards, which is quite a while down the road. 

Common Core Standards: Transforming Teaching with Collaborative Technology

Dawn Hall

CO

Tucker, C. (2012, October). Common core standards:Transforming teaching with collaborative technology. Teacher Librarian, 39(6), 30-37.

                This article discusses how the Common Core Standards require students to work collaboratively and how important having skills in this area is to their future learning and professional lives. Tucker points out that technology provides many great options to foster student collaboration. She describes how she uses the Collaborize Classroom platform in her teaching and how it has transformed her students’ engagement in learning. She also mentions the Google Docs suite as another useful tool for student collaboration and provides several great suggestions for how to use it in different subject areas.

 

Apps Supporting Common Core State Standards

Chambers, Julia

Cohen, S. (2012). Apps meet the Common Core State Standards in writing. Teacher Librarian, 40(2), 32-39. Retrieved from http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk//launch.aspx?eid=f50f51d4-ce9b-4584-8a0a-68b19c3eb9e7

In this article, Media Specialist Sydnye Cohen looks at seven of the new Common Core State Standards for writing and discusses how teacher librarians can introduce tools and collaborate with teachers to help teach and assess student’s learning along the way. The following outline identifies a particular CC Standard and then supplies the author’s suggested online tools that can aid students in mastering the standard.

Writing Standard 1: Write arguments using valid reasoning and relevant evidence.

            Apps

• Subtext: an app for online reading, great for collaborative reading, sharing annotations, and providing opportunities for students to synthesis directly following the text)
• Gale Access My Library (AML): an app that uses Gale databases to find vetted, relevant evidence
• Diigo: social bookmarking app useful for gathering resources with annotation capabilities

Writing Standard 5: Develop and strengthen writing by planning, revising, editing, and rewriting

            Apps

• Lino: graphic outlining that enables student to see linear and non-linear connection between ideas
• iBrainstorm: outlining that allows students to type in text and draw
• Popplet: outlining/organizing using text and images
• Noodletools: a subscription writing/researching tool for taking notes, creating an outline, and citing sources in the correct format

Writing Standard 6: Use technology to collaborate, produce, and publish writing online

            Apps

• Google Docs: collaborative editing/publishing
• Voice-thread: students combine still and moving images with voice and text to create online stories
• Pen.io: publish text and images; saves to the Web
• Paperport: publish text, images, voice, and handwriting and save as a PDF or share in Dropbox
• Visual Poet: pairs images with works for 3poanel poetry

Writing Standard 7: Research to build and present knowledge

            Apps

• Pearltrees: students vet websites and curate the web for better access to what they need
• Google Scholar: offers opportunities to evaluate information on the Internet
• Diigo: gives students opportunity to categorize information, highlight and annotate it for meaning.

Writing Standard 8: Gather information from a variety of print/digital sources, assess credibility and integrate information while avoiding plagerism.

            Apps

• TED: always credible with multi-module formats
• iTunes U: resources created by educators
• Noodletools: (see above) allows teachers/librarians to assess students at every stage of research and writing

Writing Standard 9: Draw evidence from text to support analysis, reflection and research

            Apps

• Diigo (see above)
• Evernote: allows annotation of texts online
• Subtext: best app for reading online

Additional Common Core State Standard for History, Science and Technology: Ability for students to see conflicting viewpoints, introduce differing claims about a topic, organize reasoning for an argument logically.

            Apps to distinguish opposing claims:

• News 360: students can search for a topic and see multiple viewpoints; can customize to see news from the left vs. news from the right
• Flipboard: students search by topic, then use higher order thinking to sort into pros, cons, and unbiased views.

I found Cohen's outline of CC State Standards for writing to be very helpful, as well as the corresponding app suggestions. Because several apps supported more than one standard, I was most curious to further investigate those as a starting point.

CA-Common Core Assessments

ET-Standards

IL-Media Literacy

Tips for Beating the Clock in the Classroom

Amy Truter

ET

Johnson, B. (2013). Tips for beating the clock in the classroom. Edutopia. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/beat-classroom-clock-tips-ben-johnson

This article provides a handful of ideas to help teachers maximize their allotted teaching time. Johnson gives examples of "time wasters" in the classroom and then elaborates on how teachers can overcome those time wasters. He advocates the jigsaw method of learning, as well as using collaborative groups to enable to the students to work together and teach each other. He also suggests using time before the lesson begins to determine where each student is at, knowledge-wise, and build a foundation for the rest of the class through vocabulary and really clear rubrics.

The ideas in this article are rapid fire suggestions for teachers looking to maximize their time. Johnson doesn't really provide any concrete examples of his ideas or explanations for how new teachers might implement the practices suggested, but the comments section has some really wonderful, real life examples of ways to save time in the classroom.

Can Student-Driven Learning Happen Under Common Core?

Jennifer Alfonso-Punzalan

ET
CA

Mindshift.  (2013, February 26).  Can student-driven learning happen under Common Core?  Retrieved from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/02/can-student-driven-learning-happen-under-common-core/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FnHAK+%28MindShift%29.

This article on Mindshift, written by Marsha Ratzel, is about how the Common Core standards will work with student-driven learning.  Ratzel, a middle school Science and Math teacher, believes that the Common Core standards will create many opportunities across and in subject areas for students to take ownership and lead their own education.  She targets English Language Arts standards, Math standards, and Social Science standards that will encourage student-driven activities such as questioning, applying a concept to their own lives, persevering, speaking and listening, and collaborating.  Ratzel predicts that teachers and students have a challenge ahead of them to discard the prescriptive teaching/learning practices that were part and parcel of No Child Left Behind, and that the Common Core will hopefully unshackle educators and learners.

I share Ms. Ratzel's sentiments very much and I, too, am hopeful that the Common Core will bring about real learning opportunities that are student-driven and authentic.  I think teachers will need to have a lot of time to collaborate with one another and share best practices.  Districts and offices of education should provide a lot of quality professional development opportunities to support their teachers with implementing the Common Core standards.  Politicians will need to give the Common Core time to be implemented and let students be really successful learners before they decide to turn the tide again.

Tech Troubles & Solutions

Parker, Linda

ET
CA
CO

K. Schwartz. (2013, April 11). Finding solutions for tech troubles in schools [Web log

       post]. Mindshift.  Retrieved from:

       http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/04/finding-ways-to-boost-broadband-for-schools/

I found this article very interesting because we are experiencing these same problems at our school currently.  It becomes a matter of technology advancing so quickly, not only can we not keep up with managing devices, but managing infrastructure becomes an issue as systems are fast out-grown and quickly out-dated.  Going to  "The Cloud" is a concern to due security issues so our school has been resistant to this idea, however, Schwartz raises an excellent point: how can we ensure there's enough broadband for everyone?  Technology is a great thing, but we are being led around by it sort of like the bull with the ring in its nose.  Here's the rub: how can schools supply what's necessary with ever-shrinking budgets?  One suggestion, although it comes with concerns is: make school a BYOD (bring your own device).  It saves money, but there are management and content issues to consider as well as bandwidth availability.  Another aspect of this article the author mentions is the Designing Education Network (DEN) which is a forum to compile best practices for quickly and carefully building up one's IT infrastructure.  We'll have to be watching to get glean some solutions for our own school.



     

The History of Curriculum in America, Part II (C)

Greene, K. (2009, Apr. 4). The History of Curriculum in America, Part II (C) [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_szKWOgxJVc

 

Chole' Tiscornia
12/5/12

Summary:

 (1980’s to 2000’s) In this final series on the History of Curriculum in America, Greene identifies key points in our history that continue to dictate our nation’s public school curriculum. Starting in the 1980’s, we left off with a return to the basics due to reports of failing SAT scores. Different educational practices started to emerge like homeschool programming for everyone; introduction of phonics for reading comprehension, and a damaging article entitled A Nation at Risk which scared the entire country. At this time, the nation was in the throes of a terrible economic recession, and people were once again blaming the education system.

 

In the 1990’s Milwaukee was the first district in the country to offer school vouchers for parents to choose what schools they wanted their children to attend. It did not take long for this idea to spread throughout other states as well. Charter schools also popped up, with the first one in Minnesota. The geographical location of the states is important as Greene points out that throughout our nation’s history, much of the educational reform, standards, and practices, originated in the North East. Education reformists had now moved to the mid-west. However, in 1993, Massachusetts passed the Massachusetts Education Reform Act which started common curriculum and statewide assessments. Other states of course followed. Scripted curriculum took over state and district teaching standards and textbook publishers along with anyone else related to textbooks and materials started to become the drivers of the curriculum. In 1998, the Higher Education Act is amended.

 In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) revisited the war on poverty. It is another attempt to get teachers to work in poorer neighborhoods. It holds schools accountable for student achievement levels, and delivers penalties for schools that do not make adequate yearly progress. For the first time in our nation’s history, the U.S. Department of Education, which was originated to share best practices, give out grants, and help schools get ahead, was turned into the education police force.  Many states resisted, but are still bound by a system of reward and punishment.

Evaluation:

I feel the last video in the series more or less further solidified the political nature of our education system as it is today. However, the video highlights the many avenues people, schools, districts, and states have taken in response to the negative reports and attitudes that are now a part of our education conscience. In the last 25 years or so, public schools seem to be playing dodge ball against reformists with a monetary agenda (homeschooling, phonics, etc.), sales people who have benefitted from standards in curriculum and testing (textbook publishers, printers, writers, computer sales, etc.), and a nation that cannot make up its mind if it wants to educate children to become responsible members of our democratic society, or so they can help us be number one in innovation, technology, military capabilities, etc. Although I do believe changes are necessary in the way we teach students because of the advancement and availability of helpful technology – and the way students have adapted their learning towards it – I do not feel education has failed us. This video lecture series on the History of Curriculum in America, even in its brevity, points to a fickle society that makes decisions and implements policies for short-term gain, on impulse to popular sentiments, without considering the long-term impact and its subsequent consequences.

History of Curriculum in America, part II (C) 

The History of Curriculum in America, Part II (B)

Greene, K. (2009, Apr. 4). The History of Curriculum in America, Part II (B) [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6qAzQ95hGQ

Chole' Tiscornia

12/5/12

 

(1940’s - 1970’s) In this third video in the series of four, Greene starts us off in the 1940’s. This is also the time of WWII. There were a lot of school drop-outs; the depression was still in full swing, too. More women started to move into more advanced coursework. Additionally, the GI Bill allowed for even more people to go on to college. This meant more teachers! Soon after, we experienced a post-war baby-boom. Even more teachers were needed, as well as materials. Education started to cost more as a result. Also along this time people were developing shared languages as TV brought more people together. Next came the Red Scare and that meant that teachers had to be very careful what they said in class, and strict standards were once again enforced to balance on the tightrope. Questioning was not encouraged. Also in 1957, SPUTNIK was launched and Americans became worried they were falling behind so a return to the basics was implemented so we could develop more rocket scientists.

The 60’s brought more of the same as the Space Race was in full swing. However, JFK became President and along with him and his wife, they brought Arts into society and schools followed. Art started to become cool again. It was okay to explore, invent, be different, and question. Dick and Jane finally got a black friend. Also in the 60’s came the Cuban Missile Crisis and Cuban families began migrating to Miami. Laws were signed by LBJ such as The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as a way to fight a war on poverty which was growing faster. This act meant to bring teachers to low-income schools. Another act, The Higher Education Act of 1965 increased federal funding to higher education, provided scholarships, and student loans. It also established a National Teachers Corps.

The 70’s brought unintentional segregation that was met with mandatory bussing to better integrate children in schools. This started the White Flight – when many whites moved out to the suburbs where busing was not an issue, and if they did stay in the cities – into private schools.

For a while, teachers were teaching the metric system, but it did not work as our culture does not use it, and even teachers didn’t understand it. In 1977 a report came out showing that the nation had declining SAT Scores. This led the curricula back to the basics once again. The metric system went out the door and an emphasis was increased once again on the survival subject, the three R’s.

Evaluation:

This third video lecture in the series started to make the history of curriculum in American schools make more sense. I’ve always wondered why I learned some subjects, while my children have been taught others. I have a better sense of why this happens – reports – studies – economic worries – national security concerns – etc. Not enough of the impetus in changes to our system is about the system itself. It’s like being a math major in college and people want you to have excellent writing skills. It is not a problem with the schools or the intelligence of the student; it is just what they have concentrated on. When people use the phrase, our schools are failing our children, I feel these statements are based on selective samplings and not a true indication of how far a child might have come in their learning process – which should be celebrated, not denigrated.

History of Curriculum in America, Part II (B)

History of Curriculum in America, Part II (A)

Greene, K. (2010, July 21). History of Curriculum in America, Part II_Movie A [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN63cUkeLzQ&feature=relmfu.

Chole’ Tiscornia 12/05/12

Summary:

(1919-1930's) Picking up from where Greene leaves off in History of Curriculum, Part I, (see my previous post), Greene reminds us that when soldiers came home from WWI they had a new sense of being an American and had stories to share. New interest groups like Irish Americans, Italian Americans, and others wanted a place in history, too. Also about this time, high school counselors started talking kids out of finishing high school since it was really for college bound students. They were encouraged to look at other alternatives because the schools had too many students who were not performing well.

The 1920’s brought us the Scopes Monkey Trials where evolutionary theory was ejected from school classrooms and creationism, which is true to the Puritan mantra, would still be taught. In 1926, the first SAT was initiated. It was used initially as a means to give out scholarships, but was quickly picked up to make predictions about students’ abilities to succeed in college. In 1928, Dewy became an international face of education. He was and is considered the Father of Pragmatism, but really he was working off the work of William James. Pragmatism relates to the mind as being an instrument for realizing purpose. Ideas are plastic and adaptable conceptual tools of one’s mind. Dewey believed in exploring, problem solving, and involvement with purpose. Ideas like thinking rather than memorizing, and learning by doing were part of his theories. School is not separate from the world, but part of it. He also was anti-authoritarian, where knowledge was delivered, rather than understood. Other terms like experiential education, outcomes based education, and education as a purpose for each individual regardless of their college intentions are linked to Dewey.

 

The 1930’s brought the Great Depression and the population became even more mobile as they headed West and other places looking for jobs. The WPA brought artists and storytellers into schools. An important student of what was then considered our failing schools was something called The 8 Year Study, where the first charter schools were started and evaluated. At this time, the Dick and Jane Basal Readers emerged. Whole word reading, and standards meant to keep the country cohesive were beginning to emerge.

 

Evaluation:

My thoughts on this part are similar to my previous evaluation on the first video of the series. It was interesting to learn just when and why certain ideas emerged and what prompted changes in curricula. Understanding what is going on in the country help me to better understand where we are at today.

 

History of Curriculum, Part II (A)