September 2011 Slides posted at www.scienceandliteracy.org

1. September 2011 Slides posted at www.scienceandliteracy.org Common Core State Standards: Opportunity for Reform or Same Old, Same Old…?P. David PearsonUC Berkeley

2. Survey • Elementary? • Secondary? • College? • What’s the difference

3. Elementary Teachers Love • Their kids

4. Secondary Teachers Love • Their subjects

5. College Teachers Love • Themselves

6. Goals • Situate the Common Core Standards • Discuss their Virtues • Unearth their Vicesand Uncertainties • Speculate on their Impact Slides posted at www.scienceandliteracy.org

7. Acknowledgements • Karen Wixson Standards and Assessment • Sheila Valencia Assessment • Freddy Hiebert Complexity

8. My Relationship with CCS • Member of the Validation Committee • Background work on text complexity with a grant from Gates Foundation • Long (and occasionally checkered) history with standards going back to • NBPTS: Standards for Teaching • IRA/NCTE Standards • Research and development work on assessment

9. Just to remind us College and Career Readiness Standards Common Core State Standards (grade by grade) Assessments to measure their mastery

10. 10 recurring standards for College and Career Readiness Show up grade after grade In more complex applications to more sophisticated texts Across the disciplines of literature, science, and social studies

11. Affordances of the CCS • An uplifting vision based on our best research on the nature of reading comprehension • Focus on results rather than means • Integrated model of literacy • Reading standards complement cognitive theory and NAEP • Elaborated theory of text complexity • Shared responsibility (text in subject matter learning) • Lots of meaty material in writing and language standards

12. An exercise • Take one of the CCR standards and trace it out across all the grade levels to see how it changes

13. 1. An Uplifting Vision: ELA CCSS • Students who meet the Standards readily undertake the close, attentive, reading that is at the heart of understanding and enjoying complex works of literature. • They habitually perform the critical reading necessary to pick carefully through the staggering amount of information available today in print and digitally. • They actively seek the wide, deep, and thoughtful engagement with high-quality literary and informational texts that builds knowledge, enlarges experience, and broadens world views. • They reflexively demonstrate the cogent reasoning and use of evidence essential to both private deliberation and responsible citizenship in a democratic republic.

14. 2. Focus on results rather than means • Why? • Leave a place for each lower level to add its own signature • Some decisions about means really are local • Appropriate role for a larger body politic • Balance between our goals and our methods

15. From the ELA Standards Document… • By emphasizing required achievements, 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. • Thus, the Standards do not mandate such things as a particular writing process or the full range of metacognitive strategies that students may need to monitor and direct their thinking and learning. • Teachers are thus free to provide students with whatever tools and knowledge their professional judgment and experience identify as most helpful for meeting the goals set out in the Standards.”

16. 3. Integrated Model of Literacy • Two views of integration • Integrated Language Arts • Integration between ELA and disciplines • The CCSS are better on the interdisciplinary than on the ELA integration • Corresponds to the actual uses to which reading and writing are put. • Reading, writing, and language always serve specific purposes • Reading and writing, not generically, • But about something in particular

17. The something in particular • What reading, writing and language look like in a domain • The information for a particular topic or unit or chapter • The information in a particular text

18. Our current view of curriculum Social Studies Language Arts Mathematics Science

19. A model I like: Tools by Disciplines Academic Disciplines……….. Language Tools 

20. Early: Tools dominate Academic Disciplines……….. Language Tools 

21. Later: Disciplines dominate Academic Disciplines……….. Language Tools 

22. Weaving is even a better metaphor than a matrix Language Writing Reading math literature Social studies Science 

23. Reading Writing Language Literature Social Studies Science Mathematics

24. Integration is tough…What happens when you try to integrate reading and math? • The evolution of mathematics story problems during the last 40 years. 

25. 1960's • A peasant sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His costs amount to 4/5 of his selling price. What is his profit? 

26. 1970's (New Math) • A farmer exchanges a set P of potatoes with a set M of money. • The cardinality of the set M is equal to $10 and each element of M is worth $1. Draw 10 big dots representing the elements of M. • The set C of production costs is comprised of 2 big dots less than the set M. • Represent C as a subset of M and give the answer to the question: What is the cardinality of the set of profits? (Draw everything in red). 

27. 1980's • A farmer sells a bag of potatoes for $10. His production costs are $8 and his profit is $2. Underline the word "potatoes" and discuss with your classmates. 

28. 1990's • A kapitalist pigg undjustlee akires $2 on a sak of patatos. Analiz this tekst and sertch for erors in speling, contens, grandmar and ponctuassion, and than ekspress your vioos regardeng this metid of geting ritch. Author unknown 

29. 2000's • Dan was a man. • Dan had a sack. • The sack was tan. • The sack had spuds • The spuds cost 8. • Dan got 10 for the tan sack of spuds. • How much can Dan the man have? 

30. 4. Comprehension Complements Other Important Efforts • NAEP • Rand view of Comprehension

31. NAEP • Locate and Recall • Interpret and Integrate • Critique and Evaluate

32. Common Core • Key ideas and details • Craft and structure • Integration of knowledge and ideas • Range and level of text complexity

33. CCSS NAEP • Key ideas and details • Craft and structure • Integration of knowledge and ideas • Range and level of text complexity • Locate and Recall • Interpret and Integrate • Critique and Evaluate • Complexity is specified but implicit not explicit

34. Consistent with Cognitive Views of Reading • Kintsch’sConstruction-Integration Model • Build a text base • Construct a “situation” model • Put the knowledge gained to work by applying it to novel situations. Key Ideas and Details Locate and Recall What the text says Decoder Integration of Knowledge and Ideas Integrate and Interpret Meaning Maker What the text means Craft and Structure What the text does Critique and Evaluate User/Analyst/Critic

35. Says Means Does

36. These consistencies provide… • Credibility • Stretch • Research “patina”

37. 5. Elaborated Theory of Text Complexity

38. Why text complexity? The gap for college and career readiness Jack Stenner’s (lexile guy) depiction of the 200 lexile gap

40. 6. Shared Responsibility • English and Subject Matter • What we said before, reading and writing are always situated in a topic and a purpose. • Knowledge fuels comprehension and writing. • Reading and writing, along with experience and instruction, fuel knowledge. • Reading and writing and language work better when they are “tools” for the acquisition of • Knowledge • Insight • Joy

43. Why sharing now? • The gap for college and workplace readiness • The increasing demands of an informational society • Finally addressing a problem that has always been there • Increasing awareness among disciplinary scholars • April 23, 2010 edition of Science.

44. 7. Lots of meaty material in writing and language • All of the good vocabulary skills and content that we often claim for reading? • As much of an issue for oral language and writing as for reading. • Writing • Media • Argumentation: Claim-evidence-warrant • Form follows function: we write with particular structures to achieve particular purposes • As important for comprehension as it is for composition

45. Constraints, Dilemmas, and Puzzles? • Can we manage the text complexity issue? • How do we disarm the “We already do all this” stance? • How do we avoid a canon of texts? • Mezza Boca problem • IF TIME: What do we do about assessment?

46. Text Complexity • Can we really make up the gap? • If we are really honest, we’ll acknowledge that in our current “dumbed down” world, we have LOTS of kids who can’t handle the texts we currently give them • What makes us think that we can up the ante without promoting even greater angst among students and teachers? • Doesn’t text complexity have to be calibrated at an individual level? • Independent-Instructional-Frustration level • What are we going to do about text complexity in Grades K-3? • Lexiles are highly unstable at prior to grade 3

47. Broaden our notions of Text Complexity—Appendix A • Qualitative evaluation of the text • Levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands • Quantitative evaluation of the text • Readability measures and other scores of text complexity • Matching reader to text and task • Reader variables (such as motivation, knowledge, and experiences) and task variables (such as purpose and the complexity generated by the task assigned and the questions posed)