One of the two readings I chose for this week is "7 ways common core standards will change your classroom" by Jacqui Murray on Teachhub.com. This website was built by teachers for teachers and it offers free lesson plans, education news, professional development, teacher blogs, among other resources.
The goal of the common core standards is: to prepare the nation's tens of thousands of students for college and/or career.
In this article, Jacqui lists a few philosophical changes that teachers will have to implement to teach by the standards of the common core:
1. Depth not width - Teachers will cover fewer topics in a year, but with greater detail.
2. Nonfiction, not fiction - Students need to be able to critically read and analyze print and digital information, a skill which will help them in the real world.
3. Evidence is required - Students will need to prove their claims with authentic and well understood evidence.
4. Speaking and Listening - These skills will be taught in the K-12 curriculum, and as students advance grade levels the requirements will advance as well.
5. Technology is a part of most/all standards - Teachers and students will use the internet, online tools, software, and tech devices as vehicles for achieving educational goals. They will be integral part of the curriculum. This mean teachers will have to be comfortable with iPads, online widgets, Google Docs, etc.
6. Life skills are emphasized across subject areas - The standards expect students to communicate effectively and think critically in all subjects. Students must understand cause and effect, transfer knowledge from one subject are to another throughout their educational day.
7. An increase in rigor - Accountability will be expected of students and teachers. CCSS will look for:
transfer of knowledge, evidence of learning, student as a risk-taker, authenticity of lessons, vertical planning, learning with increasingly less scaffolding and prompting, and differentiated instruction so all learners get it.
Based on this list, do you think that these philosophical changes will positively affect students and education?
The second reading is "In Defense of the Common Core Standards" by Joshua Bleiberg an Darrell West. In this article, the authors defend the common core by describing benefits of the standards.
They begin by talking about the tension between standards and curriculum. The authors mention how the standards define what students should know and be able to do, but not how teachers should teach it. They say, "high quality education is only possible with both rigorous standards and excellent curriculum"
But, they go on to explain how standards defines which curriculum materials are appropriate and which are not through establishing a system to measure teaching materials and students. The standards serve as a guide for the tests, textbooks, and other teaching tools.
DO YOU THINK THAT STANDARDS GIVE TEACHERS THE FREEDOM TO DECIDE HOW TO TEACH, OR DO YOU BELIEVE THAT THE STANDARDS ARE RESTRICTING? IN WHAT WAYS?
An argument against CCSS is that they place too many restrictions on teachers, that low income students and those with disabilities face greater challenges in meeting grade level proficiency, and that teachers are not given the resources to achieve these goals.
But the authors mention a lot of positives in their defense of the CCSS:
The standards are supposed to ensure a baseline level of instruction quality and minimize variation in learning goals across classrooms, schools, and districts. Standards let teachers focus on how to help their students learn, and standards make it easy to plug a lesson from another teacher into their own curriculum. Standards create a common language for discussing the goals of education and makes it easier to communicate ideas between and within the professions that contribute to education.
Some of the benefits of the standards, according to these authors, are that they create a platform that allows for the delivery of new techniques and technologies, and they provide support researchers and innovators an avenue into the classrooms so that they can support teachers who are otherwise left with a full classroom and the responsibility for teaching them on their own. Another benefit is that the greater number of districts and states that adopt the CC, the greater the incentive for developers of curriculum materials to develop products for the market.
WHAT KIINDS OF CURRICULUM MATERIALS CAN BE DEVELOPED TO HELP TEACHERS IMPLEMENT THE STANDARDS IN THEIR CLASSROOMS?
The authors say, "According to the popular definition of standards, they serve as a countervailing force to innovation that restricts flexibility and creativity. Paradoxically, standards spark innovation"
DO YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE?
ARE THERE OTHER BENEFITS OF IMPLEMENTING THE CCSS? IN YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE USING THE CCSS IN YOUR LESSONS, DO YOU FIND THEM HELPFUL OR RESTRICTING? WHAT ARE YOUR OVERALL THOUGHTS OF THE CCSS?
Readings:
Good Post Vanessa,
ReplyDeleteI am on the fence about CCSS. The articles I read, one was from an education newspaper named "Education Week" and the other was from an online magazine called "Rethinking Schools," made me rethink the CCSS. AS you mention, the CCSS adds more rigor to the standards that students are supposed to be able to perform. In the article in "Rethinking Schools" by author Stan Karp, he mentions that more rigor was supposed to help schools close the achievement gap through standardized tests in the legislation of NCLB, but it did not close the gap. In fact, it made it worse, while also causing the closing of public schools and the opening of more publicly funded charter schools. Also, the legislation did not address the problems with equity. As you mention, schools will be required to use more technology, but what if the school can not afford that technology (they may not even have enough money for every students to have books). Although I agree with many of the CCSS, as they are more about critical thinking skills, I do not think they are going to be the panacea some might think. Schools need to be funded more equitably, I think that this is the first step in addressing the achievement gap and also the first step in making ALL students either career or college ready as the proponents of the new CCSS say is their purpose.
Archie, I agree with your comment about schools needing to be funded more equitably. Before I read these articles, I was in favor of common core standards. Not knowing the history behind these decisions, I found the common core a great way to give my lessons some validity and specificity. After reading "The Common Core Standards Initiative: An effective reform tool? by William J. Mathis however, I now see why this is such a "hot-topic." In this article, he states that the common core standards are being implemented and created not by educators, but by employees of Achieve who are "testing companies and pro-accountability groups." To me this means that the bottom line for all of this is to fund the standardized testing corporations. For students to pass these tests, student's have to invest their money in buying the materials necessary to pass these tests. It's frustrating. The fact that "the Gates Foundation is a significant contributor to the common core standards effort," just solidifies this argument. This is another blow to underfunded schools and students living in poverty who do not have the resources to purchase these texts. On a personal level, when I began my education at UIC, I had to re-take the ACT. Believing myself to already be a somewhat educated individual, I didn't do much preparation for the ACT. Needless to say, I had to re-take it. The second time, I bought one of the test prep books, not so that I could learn a subject, but so I could learn the hints and strategies to take the test more effectively. I passed. The second article I read was titled "Grammar an 'Inch Wide and a Mile Deep': Approaching Common Core Standards," by Constance Weaver. She seems to feel that if we just teach the subject, in this case writing, creatively and by using students own examples, very little text preparation needs to be addressed for the specific tests. Again, with my personal experience I do not believe this to be the case. It was only until I learned the format and specifics the test was asking for that I achieved a higher score on my written portion of the ACT. The notion that a solid lesson on "adverbial modifiers" would be all that was needed seems a tad naive.
ReplyDeleteJason:
DeleteYour point that "the bottom line for all of this is to fund standardized testing corporations" squares with my findings as well. I read Alan Singer's blog in the Huffington Post's Edcuation section, and Singer cites both the Wall Street Journal and Fordham Institute to explain that " the national cost for compliance with the Common Core standards would be between $1 billion to $8 billion and the profits would go almost directly to publishers;" Singer goes on to mention that profitability of this initiative when he quotes the CEO of our favorite classroom punching bag, Pearson's Peter Cohen: "It's a really big deal. The Common Core standards are affecting literally every part of the business we're involved in." But the fact that corporations stand to profit off the objective to be measured in Common Core does not bother me as much as how the Common Core, in its embryonic state, came to be viewed as the only possibility for education, and one tied to the vision that education still remains the best shot of "competing globally" and "entering into the market." It's this instrumentalist logic that really concerns me.
Hello!
ReplyDeleteLike I mentioned in my previous post, I do not believe the CCSS promote effective learning or solve the achievement gap. There is just diversity between student body/teacher body across all schools and districts. However, the article I read, "Common Core State Standards Pros/Cons" by parentsforpublicschools.org, lists several outcomes of the CCSS. One of the outcomes of CCSS is that it will "cause states to save money on creating and scoring tests." I do not necessarily believe this is true. From what I know, all of these standardized tests are expensive, yet there is no money to invest in resources? There really is no money saving in education. Another outcome the article lists is that the "Common Core State Standards will increase rigor in the classroom." From this semester's experience, my teacher did not promote any type of rigor in the classroom. Most of the students do not have the skills to even experience a rigorous curriculum. Yes, it can be done, but my teacher needs to teach all of the basic skills that they should have acquired in the earlier grade-levels. This article was unrealistic of the outcomes of the CCSS.
Vanessa,
ReplyDeleteI think that those philosophical changes are positive of course, but it's the nitty gritty part of CCSS that gets messy. Obviously we all want these things for our students, however are these standards right for every student? We don't have any evidence of this yet as Common Core was implemented so early without any trial. The idea of national standards can be positive if the standards are adaptable to each school/district. We can all agree that this country is extremely diverse and students from Chicago, Illinois are very different than students from Bismarck, North Dakota. I think if these standards worked more as a guide and gave structure but also freedom to teachers, they would be effective.
I think the math standards provide teachers with certain freedoms. The notion of inch deep mile wide, really limits teachers freedom because they are trying to cram so many things into the school year that they have little room for freedoms in their lessons. The common core lists standards in simpler sense, and provides room for teachers to interpret. I think for the math as well, because they have 8 math standards that focus on practices that help students build stronger math skills, that despite who a student is and where they come from they should be able to progress, even if its not at the same pace. Regardless of curriculum students will always get ahead or fall behind, and teachers will always be in need of better resources to help those different types of students. I think however that there are lots of dangers with the common core being viewed as a checklist similar to other standards, and this is a major concern, unless they make the standards more restrictive there will be teachers who treat it as a restrictive document that they must tightly adhere to. for example, there are 8 math practice standards that should be implemented at least one into the daily lesson, everyday, regardless of what topic is being covered that day, I've seen teachers treat the practice standards as if they were a topic to be covered once, where they spent one day honing those skills and then never applying them again, for the remainder of the unit, returning instead to low level thinking tasks, that lack any mathematical elements, but rely instead on repetition and memorization. So I think the common core can be helpful if properly implemented and teachers and administrators have been given proper explanation of the intention of the common core. In one article I looked at http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/11/12/12cc-coherence.h34.html
ReplyDeleteTeachers were able to use the common core as a means of creating fluidity in math from one year to the next. Teachers in different grade levels got together to read the common core supporting documents, and create a means of implementing it with regard for what students will be doing before and after certain grades. So there are schools that are taking it as an opportunity to work together and apply the better intentions of the document, and there are those that view it as another set of rules and standards that are being forced on them, and it's that attitude that leads to poor implementation, versus the prior which can lead to more positive outcomes.
Hey Vanessa,
ReplyDeleteThe articles you cite give teachers some great talking points. I just finished an article from teachingchannel.org that listed "five key strategies" for ELL instruction that can be used alongside CCSS. It lists the following strategies:
Scaffolding Understanding
Purposeful Grouping
Background Knowledge
Extended Discussion
Valuing Linguistic Differences
Shouldn't we be doing these things for all of our students?? In this article I saw little mention of how these "key" strategies are fit for the implementation of these standards. The author simply mentioned that these standards call for students to master "academic language practices." She mentioned that studies have shown that language learners benefit from instruction that integrates language and content. Again, shouldn't we always be doing this? While I understand the arguments for CCSS, I agree that teachers are limited. I think we're limited, though, in how we can assess our students. The standards also assume that our students have met all the ones for the previous grades. As English teachers in CPS, we are all well aware of the fact that our students do not read at grade level. What then? We find ourselves playing catch up.
Hey Vanessa,
ReplyDeleteExcellent Post. You did a great job of summarizing many of the benefits that the CCSS can provide such as easy implementation of other teacher's lessons into your own curriculum, however I would have to agree with a large portion of the opposition that the CCSS can be very restricting for teachers as well. If a teacher believes there is a very important concept that the students must know, but does not have time in the school year to teach it because it is not a standard and those MUST be covered, then the students simply never learn this information that may prove useful, or even vital, in the future. Moreover, one of my readings, Implementation of the Common Core State Standards and the Practitioner: Pitfalls and Possibilities by Reutzel, also addressed the concern that instructional time has been reduced in order to make more time for assessment of these standards. Implementation and assessment of these standards appear to have many drawbacks that are counterbalancing those benefits.
Hi Vanessa,
ReplyDeleteI think on paper, and as nicely articulated by your author's article, the Common Core has decent goals for students. I don't question that. But what I do question is a how a document made by only a limited group of professionals knows exacly what students need. When I read these, I say, "of course we have to do that" in my head because I feel as though we've been educated to be quality teachers. However, I know that asking all colleges across the country to produce quality teachers is unreliable and is too much of a risk.
These goals are nothing new to me. I know that evidence is necessary for my students to support a claim. I know that nonfiction resources are beneficial to be taught in correspondance with fiction novels. How can we not know that in a world of booming technological advances that we should use those in the classroom? It's hard NOT to do these things.
On the other hand, what I see missing is student experience, becoming good people, transformation, and all of the other anecdotes teachers like our class love to emphasize. How can we keep students in school without applying the Common Core AND these personal ideals instead of trying so hard to keep things mechanical and emotionally irrelevant?
I've been asking a million times, "Why English?" My answer always is 1. because I'm good at it, of course, but most importantly 2. Because I don't believe in having a set way to do things; that one answer is always correct as it often is in the sciences and mathematics. I relate the arguments to the Common Core to my answers to the English question. The Common Core says these set ways are how to succeed, but I don't see only that being the answer.
Nice post!
Andrea
To answer your first question, I think that these philosophical changes will in fact affect students positively. I feel that these changes will help students become critical and analytic thinkers. Because of the rigors of these standards, students will keep a keen eye on tasks, work through the challenges in the tasks, and provide evidence to prove any and all answers or conjectures. Furthermore, these changes will provide an avenue for students to find this evidence through use of technology as #5 on your list explains.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your second question, I think regardless of the standards, teachers still have the freedom to teach the way they want. I feel that the factor that restricts teachers in their teaching is time. Of course, time is embedded in this idea of rigorous standards and curriculum. However, if there were avenues of extending instruction time, as well as shortening the curriculum slightly, teachers will be able to address each standard, and ultimately, obtain a deeper understanding of each topic and concept embedded in each of these standards.
Finally, to address your last question, (as I stated on someone else's blog) I feel that the CCSS have great potential, but there is no denying that it will incredibly hard to implement in part of the teachers, and for the students to be receptive of them (just like that). In my personal experience this semester, I have seen that teaching for conceptual understanding is incredibly hard, especially if students rely on procedural understanding or rote memorization. Long story short, I feel that the benefits of the CCSS will not become apparent until teachers are better trained, better informed, and better implementers of these standards. That kind of thing takes time, and both students as well as teachers need that time in order to really benefit from the CCSS.
The quote at the end is very puzzling. I believe the innovation comes into play because of the limited focus on content. Previous state standards were said to be "a mile wide and an inch deep" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/Karin-Chenoweth/wait---tell-me-again-what_b_5758846.html). With more focus on skills, I believe the common core standards are great in focusing on how to get the answer and that there are many ways to reach that answer.
ReplyDeleteThese changes to the CC are frightening. All I see is a focus and push towards college, when these focuses shouldn't be felt or even seen by students. For those students who do want to attend college, the intentions of the CC can make students feel like they are part of a larger system and their individuality/unique skill sets seem blurred by the exactness required by the CC. As for students who don't view college as a necessary part of their futures, the CC makes them feel like their choice is the less superior, subordinate choice.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteHey Vanessa, similar to your article by Bleiberg, I found an article that also defended Common Core standards. According to “Common Core Standards Systems Implementation Plan for California” which was proposed by the California Department of Education on April 2014, common core would provide students with "world class education collaborating with educators, schools, parents, community partners to prepare students to live, work, and thrive in a highly connected world.” After reading this, I was cautious of the article. Do all these people actually work together for the better of the students? Isn’t it just the test designers designing a test that frustrates parents, teachers, students, and the community, because obviously not many students are ‘where they should be?’ Also, it seemed that their mission rather to learn, was to create workers for the future. It’s continues in a similar fashion to your article about stages that are appropriate for students to be at. However, learning then becomes teaching to the test, which restricts teachers to teaching a specific way. I wonder, can standards ever be individual, specific for each student? So that all students can succeed at different levels. But then I guess that takes away the point of a standard…
Hi Vanessa,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post! The article titled, "7 ways Common Core Will Change Your Classroom," gave what I thought, was a great list. However, number 2 kind of hurt my heart. I feel like it's saying we need to teach high school students how to skim instead of how to read. I agree that they definitely NEED to learn faster, informational reading, but I think that high school is the place where students should be given a chance to fall in love with reading and practice/ enhance their reading skills. I wouldn't take out nonfiction but I would add more opportunity for informational reading.
Hi Vanessa, great post! I liked the fact that you including the 7 ways common core will change our classroom. I am for some of the changes, but not all. I like that the common core standards tell teachers what to teach, but not how (allegedly). However, I do not like that these standards work towards-as AManda mentioned in her post-standardizing our students. Not all students are the same-and as you mention the standards make it harder for minority students and low-income students to be at "grade level"-which reminds me of a quote by TJefferson: "There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.” I agree with this quote-I think standards need not cut across state lines and expect the same thing from every student-I think that is too unfair to teachers and students. I appreciate the standards and admit that they are a good starting point-and a good way of helping teachers keep their lesson plans focused-however, the lack of preparation teachers get I think are leading towards a poor education system. I think they pressure teachers too much and force them to just slap any standard on a lesson plan and hope it sticks.
ReplyDeleteHi Vanessa,
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, although the first notion in the "7 ways CC will change our classroom" was a negative one, I didn't find the article to be so. The issue is, (as with most of what we talk about regarding teaching) that in theory many of these implementations seem reasonable and even needed. However, how realistic are implementing these philosophical notions in our classrooms? Multiple readings state that all students will be challenged with these new standards, students on the low end of achievement and those on the high end. How is that possible if the curriculum is following a standard and not a differentiation?
Regardless, in response to your question, I do believe those 7 philosophical standards would be beneficial to students, but the real question is how realistic is making those ideologies real in the classroom?
Vanessa,
ReplyDeleteHowever beneficial the implementation of Common Core may appear on paper, and regardless of the earnestness with which that implementation is pursued by CC's outspoken advocates, the top-down imposition of rigid standards will not eliminate--nor ameliorate in any meaningful sense--those structural inequalities responsible for securing the continued existence of the achievement gap in our schools. Clearly, a wholesale embrace of Common Core standards will not, and cannot, guarantee the results desired by educators. What it does guarantee is the further enrichment of those interests who stand to gain financially from Common Core’s implementation. There is, however, no shortage of individuals and groups, separate from the corporate interests most eager to see Common Core adopted, who reject views like those I have expressed here. People such as Christopher Koch, Illinois State Superintendent of Education, have cast the Common Core as a tool capable of helping educators identify those areas of weakness that prevent some students from transitioning successfully from high school to college. “Koch,” the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board has noted recently, “acknowledges [figures that suggest that many Illinois students are unprepared to make the leap from high school to college] and says new statewide tests tied to the Common Core curriculum should help educators better pinpoint who's ready for college work and who needs remedial help before they leave high school.” It seems to me, though, that this approach—one aimed at addressing symptoms rather than root causes—is doomed to be, at best, ineffectual.
Josh
Even though CC is supposed to prepare students for college, I find it ironic that the Center on Education Policy found that through a study done, "fewer states are taking steps to align college admissions requirements and first-year curriculum with the CCSS" (http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED528907). The entirety of CC is supposed to benefit our students, but in turn, seems to be implements to track teachers more so than students. CC claims their goals are to benefit the students and prepare them for college, but it seems to be movintg away from that great concept and gearing more towards a way to give schools and teachers a grade.
ReplyDeleteI understand that common core is suppose to help students be better educated. In a way they are just guidelines to let teacher's know what is expected from them. In the end we as teachers have to work with these guidelines. Which makes me think of an NPR article that I read called Teachers Hit the Common Core Wall which gave teachers three options on how to work with these guidelines. The first option is to do nothing and use the old textbook, the second option is to buy new materials but many of the new materials are still not lined up with the common core standards and the third option is to Do it Yourself. I think the best is to combine all three of these and work with others to tackle the common core standards. In the end I feel the goal of the common core standards is to get all schools in the nation on the same page.
ReplyDeleteThe standards are restricting because they make a difference in what teachers are supposed to teach and what students are supposed to know and be able to do by the end of each grade level. The article “Relating Policy to Research and Practice: The Common Core Standards” noted that the standards do not address functions of literacy such as “reflection, personal growth, civic participation, social change, the creation of literary art or the formulation of public identities in environments like the internet.” I think that these functions of literacy are part of what it means to be a literate person in the 21st century. The article also poses a valid question: “How did a project focusing on high school graduation and the meaning of a diploma come to have something to say about kindergarten?” This question goes along with what we have talked about in this course regarding the policy on paper versus implementation. The standards have changed elementary teachers jobs from supporting children’s curiosity about the world around them to achieving an abstract goal. Also, since students learn and develop at different rates, should all students be able to achieve the same exact standards after each grade?
ReplyDeleteI feel that the way I will implement the common core will probably start off at the beginning of my career by me really working to fit lessons around it, but once I get used to writing lessons and units, I will probably make a whole unit and backwards plan it in terms of what the final assessment and what the learning objective is, and then go and find a standard that fits my lesson. Instead of doing it the other way around. I am not sure if this is a good or bad thing, I think that if my learning objectives are strong and based in what the students need to learn in order to succeed academically, it will be okay to fit it in that way, but, if I am unclear on what a learning objective for a unit will be then I will lean on the common core more.
ReplyDelete