Common Core Standards

A Challenge and an Opportunity

Workforce Needs: Employee Deficiencies

Of the high school students that you recently hired, what were their deficiencies?

Written Communication 81%

Leadership 73%

Work Ethic 70%

Critical Thinking & Problem Solving 70%

Self-Direction 58%

Source: Are They Really Ready to Work? (2006) The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, P21, and SHRM

Why Now?

• Global competition

• Today’s jobs require different skills

• Thinking and Reasoning will become basic skills

Why is This Important for Students, Teachers, and Parents?

• Prepares students with the knowledge and skills they need to similar standards across states

• Student mobility• Succeed in college and work• Ensures consistent expectations

regardless of a student’s zip code • Provides educators, parents, and

students with clear, focused guideposts

Kindergarten Students

• 2012 – Starting School

• 2018 – Middle School

• 2020 – 8th grade promotion

• 2024 – High School

Graduation

• 2028 – College Graduation

• 2071 – turning 65

• 2096 – turning 90

• Some maybe living in the 22nd Century

A Different World

VIDEO

Yesterday is History,

Tomorrow is a Mystery,

Today is a GiftQuote from the movie Kung Fu Panda

Workforce Needs: What skills and content areas will be growing in importance in the next five years?

Critical Thinking 78%

I.T. 77%

Health and Wellness 76%

Collaboration 74%

Creativity and Innovation 74%

Personal Financial Responsibility 72%Source: Are They Really Ready to Work? (2006) The Conference Board, Corporate Voices

StandardsDefinition – Level of quality accepted as norm

Types of Standards• State Standard• Common Core• College Readiness (ACT)• National Organizations• International

There is a greater focus on: • Non-fiction text • Self directed learning• 4 C’s

• Critical Thinking • Communication • Collaboration • Creativity

Advantages to Common Core Standards

• A focus on college and career readiness• Inclusion of the four strands of English Language Arts:

• Reading• Writing• Listening and speaking• Language

• The benefits of an integrated literacy approach – all educators have a shared

responsibility for literacy instruction, regardless of discipline or content area. • A focus on results rather than means – . . .“the Standards leave room for

teachers, curriculum developers, and states to determine how those goals should be reached and what additional topics should be addressed.” (p. 4)

• Efficiencies of scale – common standards allow for greater collaboration among states in the areas of:

• Professional development• Resource development• Teaching tools

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Rothman’s Key Points

• Common Core have paired down the list of topic to allow teachers to focus on subject.

(Depth, not breath)• Common Core Lessons and testing get

more complex as students progress. (Ramping up difficultly)

• Common Core focuses on both aspects of literacy. (Speaking and Listening)

• Robert Rothman Michigan State University

VIDEO

16 Habits of Mind• Persisting• Managing Impulsivity• Listening with understanding

& empathy• Thinking flexibility• Thinking about thinking• Striving for accuracy• Questioning & posing

problems• Applying past knowledge to

new situations

• Thinking & Communicating with clarity and precision

• Gathering Data through all senses

• Creating, imagining, innovating

• Responding with wonderment & awe

• Taking responsible risks• Finding humor• Thinking Interdependently• Remaining open to

continuous learning

Rigor

What is Depth of Knowledge (DOK)?

• A scale of cognitive demand (thinking) to align standards with assessments

• Based on the research of Norman Webb, University of Wisconsin Center for Education Research and the National Institute for Science Education

• Defines the “ceiling” or highest DOK level for each Core Content standard for the state assessment

• Guides item development for state assessments

• Level 1: Recall and Reproduction

• Level 2: Skills & Concepts

• Level 3: Strategic Thinking

• Level 4: Extended Thinking

Webb’s Four Levels of Cognitive Complexity

Same Verb—Three Different DOK Levels

DOK 1- Describe three characteristics of metamorphic rocks. (Requires simple recall)

DOK 2- Describe the difference between metamorphic and igneous rocks. (Requires cognitive processing to determine the differences in the two rock types)

DOK 3- Describe a model that you might use to represent the relationships that exist within the rock cycle. (Requires deep understanding of rock cycle and a determination of how best to represent it)

“Extending the length of an activity alone does not necessarily create rigor!”

The Standards cultivate three mutually reinforcing writing capacities:

– To persuade– To explain– To convey real or imagined experience

Distribution of Communicative Purposes by Gradein the 2011 NAEP Writing Framework

Grade To Persuade To Explain To ConveyExperience

4 30% 35% 35%

8 35% 35% 30%

12 40% 40% 20%25

Emphasis on Informational Text

Distribution of Literary and Informational Passagesby Grade in the 2009 NAEP Reading Framework

Grade Literary Information

4 50% 50%

8 45% 55%

12 30% 70%

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Overview of Text Text Complexity

Text complexity is defined by:

Qua

litat

ive

Qualitative measures – levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands often best measured by an attentive human reader. Q

uantitative

Quantitative measures – readability and other scores of text complexity often best measured by computer software.

Reader and Task

Reader and Task considerations – background knowledge of reader, motivation, interests, and complexity generated by tasks assigned often best made by educators employing their professional judgment.

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Step 1: Quantitative Measures

Measures such as:• Word length• Word frequency• Word difficulty• Sentence length• Text length• Text cohesion

Quantitative Measures

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Step 2: Qualitative Measures

Measures such as:• Structure• Language Demands and

Conventions• Knowledge Demands• Levels of

Meaning/Purpose

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Step 3: Reader and Task

Considerations such as:• Motivation• Knowledge and experience• Purpose for reading• Complexity of task assigned

regarding text• Complexity of questions asked

regarding text

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What’s the same? What’s different?

CCSS – M (Grade 4)• Draw and identify lines and angles,

and classify shapes by properties of their lines and angles

• 1. Draw points, lines, line segments, rays, angles (right, acute, obtuse), and perpendicular and parallel lines. Identify these in two dimensional figures

• 1. Classify two-dimensional figures based on the presence or absence of angles of a specified size. Recognize right triangles as a category, and identify right triangles

• 2. Recognize a line of symmetry for a two- dimensional figure as a line across the figure such that the figure can be folded along the line into matching parts, Identify line-symmetric figures and draw lines of symmetry

State Standard (Grade 4)• Uses properties or attributes of angles

(number of angles) or sides (number of sides, length of sides, parallelism, or perpendicularity) to identify, describe, or distinguish among triangles, squares, rectangles, rhombi, trapezoids, hexagons, or octagons; or classify angles relative to 90 degrees as more than, less than, or equal to.

What’s the same? What’s different?

CCSS – M (Grade 4)• Draw and identify lines and angles, and

classify shapes by properties of their lines and angles

• 1. Draw points, lines, line segments, rays, angles (right, acute, obtuse), and perpendicular and parallel lines. Identify these in two dimensional figures

• 1. Classify two-dimensional figures based on the presence or absence of angles of a specified size. Recognize right triangles as a category, and identify right triangles

• 2. Recognize a line of symmetry for a two- dimensional figure as a line across the figure such that the figure can be folded along the line into matching parts, Identify line-symmetric figures and draw lines of symmetry

State Standard (Grade 4)• Uses properties or attributes of angles

(number of angles) or sides (number of sides, length of sides, parallelism, or perpendicularity) to identify, describe, or distinguish among triangles, squares, rectangles, rhombi, trapezoids, hexagons, or octagons; or classify angles relative to 90 degrees as more than, less than, or equal to.

5 Things Every Teacher Should be Doing to Meet the Common

Core State Standards

Number 1Lead High Level, Text-Based Discussions

When you ask students to discuss a text as a whole class or in small groups, make sure that your questions are grounded in the text, and that students refer to the text in their responses.

5 Things Every Teacher Should be Doing to Meet the Common

Core State Standards

Number 2Focus on Process, not just Content

The Common Core State Standards stress the importance of student discovery. In other words, we cannot merely fill students’ heads with content; we should provide them with opportunities to discover information on their own.

5 Things Every Teacher Should be Doing to Meet the Common

Core State Standards

Number 3Create Assignments for Real Audiences and

with Real Purposes

There is an importance of writing for a variety of audiences. Students should “write routinely over extended time frames...for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences”.

5 Things Every Teacher Should be Doing to Meet the Common

Core State Standards

Number 4Teach Argument, Not Persuasion

The CCSS favor argument over persuasion because it requires more logic and reason, and is more in line with the kind of writing that students will be expected to do in college.

5 Things Every Teacher Should be Doing to Meet the Common

Core State Standards

Number 5Increase Text Complexity

Look for balance: material should be difficult enough that students are learning something new, but not so hard that they give up.

Most Importantly

• Ensure that the movement towards Common Core is only a part of a larger M.S.A.D. No. 27 district reform effort.

• School reform needs to center on the relationships among students, teachers, parents, educational leaders, and the community

• The quality of those interactions will be what leads to high student learning more than any set of standards

Burning Questions