Common Core Support Tools Below you will find unpacking standards documents to support teachers in their understanding of the common core and essential standards. The unpacking documents demonstrate at a granular level the knowledge and skills students are expected to master at a particular grade. Important Note: The current Standard Course of Study will continue to be taught and tested during the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years. English Language Arts Unpacking Standards Kindergarten (pdf, 276kb) 1st Grade (pdf, 161kb) 2nd Grade (pdf, 170kb) 3rd Grade (pdf, 165kb) 4th Grade (pdf, 282kb) 5th Grade (pdf, 298kb) 6th Grade (pdf, 315kb) 7th Grade (pdf, 300kb) 8th Grade (pdf, 340kb) English I & II (pdf, 303kb) English III & IV (pdf, 302kb) Math Unpacking Standards Kindergarten (pdf, 6.8mb) 1st Grade (pdf, 11.3mb) 2nd Grade (pdf, 1.1mb) 3rd Grade (pdf, 5.4mb) 4th Grade (pdf, 8.5mb) 5th Grade Math (pdf, 4.4mb) 6th Grade (pdf, 2.1mb) 7th Grade (pdf, 909kb) 8th Grade (pdf, 1.9mb) Algebra (pdf, 229kb) Functions (pdf, 260kb)
Assessing Student Progress Using Blog-Based Porfolios Editor’s note: Kathy Cassidy is the author of a new book from Powerful Learning Press, Connected from the Start: Global Learning in the Primary Grades. During a recent webinar (free archive here), Kathy shared many ideas from Chapter 5 of the book, “Using Blogs as Digital Portfolios.” The webinar was rich in content and full of great discussion — so much so that there simply wasn’t time for Kathy to share her thoughts, in depth, about where formative and summative assessments might fit into this digital blog/portfolio model. So we’ve asked her to write this article. A Great Tool to Continuously Assess Progress by Kathy Cassidy In my classroom, each of my grade one and grade two students has their own blog. The children have these online portfolios for many reasons, including an authentic audience, parental engagement, and the opportunity to create an online community. Formative Assessment I am continually doing formative assessment in my classroom — that is, assessment for learning.
Common Core | Monterey County Office of Education New Resource Innovative Use of the K–8 Mathematics Learning Progressions PLM Thursday, May 23, 2013, 3:30 p.m., PDT This presentation offers educators an opportunity to view and interact with the California Department of Education Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Professional Learning Module (PLM), K–8 Mathematics Learning Progressions. California Spotlight on Santee School District Educators, students, and parents are presented with a myriad of options when searching the Web for information about CCSS. School in a Small World | Technology changes everything. English Language Arts 6-8 6-8 English Language Arts CCGPS Overview Instruction in grades 6-8 addresses students’ increasing maturity and the growing sophistication of their abilities, culminating in the development by the end of grade 8 of students who are ready to succeed in high school. Students should be able to comprehend more challenging books and articles, basing all of their analyses, inferences, and claims on explicit and relevant evidence from the texts. Students will expand on their ability to identify central ideas by identifying how those themes are shaped and conveyed by particular details. The 6-8 Standards are organized in the following Strands and include identical categories across grades (go to Georgia Department of Education English Language Arts CCGPS Grade Level Documents for the full text):
College and Career Readiness through Individualized Learning Plans | CCRS Center On May 29, the American Youth Policy Forum, the College and Career Readiness and Success Center , and the Center for Workforce Development at the Institute for Educational Leadership held a webinar titled “The Use of Individualized Learning Plans to Help Students to be College and Career Ready.” The webinar highlighted research examining the effectiveness of individualized learning plans (ILPs), as well as the experiences of two states in the implementation and scaling-up of ILPs. According to Dr. Dr. Mindy Larson, senior program associate for the Center for Workforce Development, along with Dr. The recording of the webinar along with a complete slide deck and recommended resources, is available online. Austin Pate is a research/policy assistant at the American Youth Policy Forum.
The International Critical Thinking Reading & Writing Test: How to Assess Close Reading and Substantive Writing: Richard Paul, Linda Elder: 9780944583326: Amazon.com Using Voice Comments with Google Docs for End of the Year Projects by @CTuckerEnglish I had a “just in time” professional development moment thanks to Jennifer Roberts and her video titled “Docs Voice Comments.” I wanted to share it with other educators as I know many of us are planning end of the year projects, assignments, and written pieces. Lastly, these end of the year projects are finished products, so covering them with comments or editing directly on them may not be the most effective way to provide feedback. My students are currently working on a Digital Portfolio Project to share the work they have created in our class. I’ve decided to use the voice comments app instead of typing out all of my comments. Because their projects will take the form of a website, I’ve decided to have students “make a copy” of the assignment description, which I created as a “view only” Google document and “share” it directly with me. Follow the steps below to enable the Voice Comments app. Search for “Voice Comments” and connect app to your Drive account.
The Best Resources For Learning How To Best Give Feedback To Students I’ve been thinking and writing (in my forthcoming book to be published by Eye On Education) about the most effective ways to give feedback to students. I’ve obviously been trying to apply what I’ve been learning in the classroom, too. As a one sentence summary, as I’ve posted about previously, the research says it’s best to praise effort and not intelligence. Here are some resources I’ve found helpful: What Kind Of Feedback Should We Give Our Students? is a post I have previously written. The Difference Between Praise & Acknowledgment is another older post. The Perils and Promises of Praise is an article by Carol Dweck. Pondering Praise is a nice essay by Joe Bower. It’s Not About How Smart You Are is an article by Carol Dweck. Goodbye to “Good Job!” “The Praise Paradox” is an excerpt from the book Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children, written by by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. New Marzano Study On “Effort & Recognition” The words that could unlock your child comes from the BBC. Dr.
7 Key Characteristics Of Better Learning Feedback 7 Key Characteristics Of Better Learning Feedback by Grant Wiggins, Authentic Education On May 26, 2015, Grant Wiggins passed away. Whether or not the feedback is just “there” to be grasped or offered by another person, all the examples highlight seven key characteristics of helpful feedback. Helpful feedback is – Goal-referencedTransparentActionableUser-friendlyTimelyOngoingConsistent Though some of these traits have been noted by various researchers [for example, Marzano, Pickering & Pollock (2001) identify some of #3, #5, #1 and #4 in describing feedback as corrective, timely, specific to a criterion], it is only when we clearly distinguish the two meanings of “corrective” (i.e. feedback vs. advice) and use all seven that we get the most robust improvements and sort out Hattie’s puzzle as to why some “feedback” works and other “feedback” doesn’t. 1. Given a desired outcome, feedback is what tells me if I should continue on or change course. 2. 3. Thus, “good job!” 4. 5. 6. 7. References
How To Use An iPad To Add Voice Comments To Grading Offering timely and effective learning feedback is a critical part of the learning process. This is a concept that’d seem to be more accessible than ever with technology, but sometimes technology is two steps forward, one step back. Take for example grading papers. While K-12 education has (mostly) moved away from pure academic essays to measure all understanding, the writing process is more important now than ever. While digital documents like pdfs allow for increased visibility, simpler sharing, and seamless curation, they have indeed taken a step back in regards to this all-important text marking. PDF Annotation Which is where pdf annotation software comes in. There are many pdf annotation apps available that allow this kind of text marking, but another killer feature that is somehow less celebrated: voice annotation. The video below walks users through adding voice comments to pdf documents, starting right at the 2:00 mark. Other Details Note that the app being shown here is iAnnotate.
Going Paperless in Your Classroom and Saving to the Cloud with Dropbox Annotate Your PDFs with GoodNotes and Save Them to Dropbox As more and more classrooms, schools and districts are going with one-to-one device programs, I am often left shedding tears of sadness when I learn that the devices are used only to complement the learning that is already happening during a lesson. I am hearing about more and more educational technology leaders in secondary schools move towards one-to-one Chromebook programs rather than iPad programs, likely to avoid this very issue. Make iPad Your #1 Learning Device in All Classes Although I have shared my thoughts on using iPad for an all-day digital learning experience in my math classroom in previous posts, I have learned recently that there may be some confusion as to how teachers and students can use their iPad to eliminate paper and unnecessary writing to dedicate more class time to the actual content. Why Does Using Technology Mean Typing on a Keyboard? Annotating PDF Files and Saving to the Cloud Create a New Notebook
Dylan Wiliam Professional development Finally! The revised Embedding formative assessment pack for schools and colleges to run their own two-year professional development programme on formative assessment is now available worldwide. Also, a series of high-quality video presentations by Dylan Wiliam, with a total running time of over two and a half hours, is now available world-wide.
How To Use Formative Assessment With (And Without) Technology Sometimes, integrating technology into your daily workflow and lesson plans isn’t that hard. Some things seem to lend themselves to a seamless transition between not using technology and using technology. Traditional assessment using technology can fall into this category (though admittedly simpler for some subject material than for others). Formative assessment, on the other hand, tends to be a little more nebulous, and perhaps harder to nail it down with technology. Luckily, the handy infographic below gives a number of great ideas on formative assessment with AND without technology. Keep reading to learn more. Use tools like Google Forms, Polleverywhere, Socrative, Voice Thread, etc to have students connect with you and their classmates to demonstrate their understanding. Katie was a teacher, graduate student, and is now the lady who makes sure Edudemic is as useful as possible.