Exploring the CORE

1. Exploring the CORE A Overview ofthe Common Core Standards for ELA and Literacy

2. Essential Questions • Why Common Core State Standards? What is the research behind it? • http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards • What does this mean for Georgia? • https://www.georgiastandards.org/Common-Core/Pages/default.aspx

4. Standards designed to meet the needs for college and career readiness. • Enable colleges and universities to better prepare for incoming students. • Common K-12 standards for pre-service teacher training in over 47 states.

5. Consistency

6. CCGPS GEORGIA TIMELINE June 2, 2010 - CCSS Released July 8, 2010 - Adopted by SBOE 2010-2011 - Communication and Administrator Training (Crosswalks GPS/CCSS) 2011-2012 - Teacher Training 2012-2013 - Classroom Implementation (Transition Year) 2014-2015 - Projected Date for Common Assessment

7. College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards CCR anchor the CCGPS in basic terms and define general, cross-disciplinary literacy expectations that must be met by the time a student leaves high school to enter college and workforce training programs ready to succeed. There are a total of 32 (10 reading, 10 writing, 6 language, & 6 in speaking and listening

8. READING SPEAKING & LISTENING LANGUAGE WRITING 10 Anchor Standards for College and Career Readiness 10 Anchor Standards for College and Career Readiness 6 Anchor Standards for CCR 6 Anchor Standards for CCR English Language Arts and Literacy Standards “Roadmap” ELA Standards K-12 Literacy Standards 6-12 Literacy Standards 6-12 ELA Standards K-12 ELA Standards K-12 ELA Standards K-12 Found-ational Skills Inform Text Literary Text Hist. / S.S. Sci. / Tech Subj. K K K → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → K K K 1 1 1 → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → 1 1 1 2 2 2 → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → 2 2 2 3 3 3 → → → → → → 3 3 3 → → → → → → → → → → → 4 4 4 → → → → → → 4 → → → → → → → → → → → 4 4 5 5 5 → → → → → → 5 → → → → → → → → → → → 5 5 6 6 6 6 6 7 7 7 6-8 6-8 6-8 7 7 8 8 8 8 8 9-10 9-10 9-10 9-10 9-10 9-10 9-10 9-10 11-12 11-12 11-12 11-12 11-12 11-12 11-12 11-12

9. Why Text Complexity Matters • How do you know if a student is college-or career-ready? According to ACT’s Reading Between the Lines, “what appears to differentiate those who are more likely to be ready from those who are less likely is their proficiency in understanding complex texts.” • Over the last 50 years, the complexity of college and workplace reading has increased, while text complexity in K-12 have remained stagnant.

10. ROAD BLOCKS TO ROBUST LEARNING • K–12 Schooling: Declining complexity of texts and a lack of reading of complex texts independently • Not enough informational reading—too much note taking without students having to read • Too much copying vocabulary and just “looking” up words versus understanding and using academic language • Limited reading and writing connection activities

11. The Staircase of Text Complexity In many respects, text complexity is the hallmarkof the CCSS as it reveals the depth of educators’ commitment to providing American students every opportunity to be prepared to meet future global challenges. The combination of the increased text complexity and the depth of cognitive demand within the task, such as incorporating discipline-specific questions, generates higher levels of rigor.

13. Shift One: Balancing Info/Literacy • Students read a true balance of informational and literary texts. • Elementary school classrooms are, therefore, places where students access the world – science, social studies, the arts and literature – through text. At least 50% of what students read is informational. • This shift will build a common knowledge base to prepare students for academic work in middle and high school.

14. Shift 2: 6-12 Discipline Knowledge • Content area teachers outside of the ELA classroom emphasize literacy experiences in their planning and instruction. • Students learn through domain specific texts in science and social studies classrooms – rather than referring to the text, they are expected to learn from what they read. • Note there is a shared responsibility for literacy-it’s not just the ELA teachers!

15. Shift 3: Staircase of Complexity • In order to prepare students for the complexity of college and career ready texts, each grade level requires a “step” of growth on the “staircase”. • Students read the central, grade appropriate text around which instruction is centered. • Teachers are patient, create more time and space in the curriculum for this close and careful reading, and provide appropriate and necessary scaffolding and supports so that it is possible for students reading below grade level.

16. Shift 4: Text Based Answers • Students have rich and rigorous conversations which are dependent on a common text. Teachers insist that classroom experiences stay deeply connected to the text on the page and that students develop habits for making evidentiary arguments both in conversation, as well as in writing to assess comprehension of a text.

17. Shift 5: Writing from Sources • Writing needs to emphasize use of evidence to inform or make an argument rather than the personal narrative and other forms of de-contextualized prompts. • While the narrative still has an important role, students develop skills through written arguments that respond to the ideas, events, facts, and arguments presented in the texts they read.

18. Shift 6: Academic Vocabulary • Students constantly build the vocabulary they need to access grade level complex texts. By focusing strategically on comprehension of pivotal and commonly found words (such as “discourse,” “generation,” “theory,” and “principled”) and less on esoteric literary terms (such as “onomatopoeia” or “homonym”), teachers constantly build students’ ability to access more complex texts across the content areas.

19. Webb’s Depth of Knowledge No Child Left Behind requires assessments to “measure the depth and breadth of the state academic content standards for a given grade level” ( US Department of Education, 2003, p.12)

20. DOK- What it is and what it is not? • A common language for discussing knowledge complexity • A tool for alignment • A way to “tune” common assessments • A conversation starter about content • A part of reflective teaching • Most state/national tests will have DOKs 1 & 2 with few DOK 3; however, the PARCC test in 2014-2015 will have DOK 4. • A state mandate • A silver bullet • Based on verbs • A taxonomy • A wheel • DOK is not an exact science. • DOK is not about difficulty but more about the cognitive demand needed to meet the standard.

21. DOK LEVEL REVIEW • LEVEL ONE - RECALL • Recall of a fact, information, or procedure • LEVEL TWO – SKILL/CONCEPT • Use information or conceptual knowledge • LEVEL THREE – STRATEGIC THINKING • Reasoning, developing a plan, more complex and abstract, students must justify responses • LEVEL FOUR – EXTENDED THINKING • Requires an investigation, collection of data and analysis of results; often occurs over an extended period of time

22. The Depth of Knowledge is NOTdetermined by the verb, but the context in which the verb is used and the depth of thinking required.

24. A Model by Willard R. Daggett, Ed.D. Studies have shown that students understand and retain knowledge best when they have applied it in a practical, relevant setting. A teacher who relies on lecturing does not provide students with optimal learning opportunities. Instead, students go to school to watch the teacher work. All educators can use Daggett’s Rigor/Relevance Framework to set their own standards of excellence as well as to plan the objectives they wish to achieve. This versatile Framework applies to standards, curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Source: http://www.leadered.com/pdf/academicexcellence.pdf

26. How does this apply to Curriculum? Think about Content DOK 2/3/4 Create New Concept with Knowledge DOK 4 Apply Knowledge DOK 2/3 Base Knowledge DOK 1

28. What is integrated learning? • Although the standards are divided into strands for clarity, the processes of communication are closely connected. • Reading comprehension and student writing always require direct textual evidence for claims, inferences, and analyses. Research and media skills are blendedinto the standards as a whole. Cited from www.gadoe.org

29. To be ready for college, workforce training, and life in a technological society, students need the ability to gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report on information and ideas, to conduct original research in order to answer questions or to solve problems. • The need to conduct research and to produce and consume text and media is embeddedinto every aspect of today’s curriculum. Similarly, research and media skills and understandings are embeddedthroughout the standards rather than treated in a separate section. http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/103011/chapters/What-Is-Integrated-Curriculum%C2%A2.aspx

30. The Literacy Design Collaborative is a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. http://www.literacydesigncollaborative.org/ Welcome to LDC! Partners use the LDC framework as a common chassis to create LDC tasks, modules, and courses designed to teach students to meet the new Common Core Literacy Standards (CCSS) while also learning to meet content demands at high levels of performance.

31. “Teaching practice is intricate, requiring a complex combination of knowledge, skill, timing, and relational work.” Deborah Ball

32. Conclusions… Common Core emphasizes a 21st century classroom that transcends the idea of teaching standards in isolation and embraces a holistic approach where reading, writing, listening, speaking, and language are woven together to engage students with meaningful and relevant lessons.

34. PARCC is a 24-state consortium working together to develop next-generation K-12 assessments in English and math. http://www.parcconline.org/about-parcc

35. PARCC benefits Studentswho will know if they are on track to graduate ready for college and careers Teacherswith regular results available to guide learning and instruction Parentswith clear and timely information about the progress of their children Stateswith valid results that are comparable across the member states The nation as it is based on college-and career-ready, internationally benchmarked CCSS.

36. QUESTIONS?