The document discusses the Common Core State Standards and the shifts they require in English Language Arts and Literacy as well as Mathematics. Some key points discussed include:
- ELA shifts focus to more informational texts, building knowledge through content, asking text-dependent questions, and citing evidence from texts.
- Math shifts focus instruction to focus on fewer topics, ensure coherence across grade levels, build fluency in key skills, foster deep conceptual understanding, and emphasize real-world applications.
- Teachers and principals are encouraged to support these shifts by changing instructional practices, allocating class time differently, and providing professional development opportunities to analyze student work and curriculum exemplars.
5. Rigorous Standards and Assessments Pre-K to 12 NY Graduates are College and Career Ready NY HS Grads Have Skills to Enroll in and Pass Credit-bearing Courses in 1 st Semester and/or Embark on Careers NYS Common Core Standards and Assessments
6. ELA/Literacy & Math Shifts 6 Shifts in Mathematics Focus Coherence Fluency Deep Understanding Applications Dual Intensity 6 Shifts in ELA/Literacy Balancing Informational and Literary Text Building Knowledge in the Disciplines Staircase of Complexity Text-based Answers Writing from Sources Academic Vocabulary
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14. Priorities in Math Grade Priorities in Support of Rich Instruction and Expectations of Fluency and Conceptual Understanding K–2 Addition and subtraction, measurement using whole number quantities 3–5 Multiplication and division of whole numbers and fractions 6 Ratios and proportional reasoning; early expressions and equations 7 Ratios and proportional reasoning; arithmetic of rational numbers 8 Linear algebra
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17. Key Fluencies Grade Required Fluency K Add/subtract within 5 1 Add/subtract within 10 2 Add/subtract within 20 Add/subtract within 100 (pencil and paper) 3 Multiply/divide within 100 Add/subtract within 1000 4 Add/subtract within 1,000,000 5 Multi-digit multiplication 6 Multi-digit division Multi-digit decimal operations 7 Solve px + q = r, p(x + q) = r 8 Solve simple 2 2 systems by inspection
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Notas del editor
For many years ,the State has been working under a “paradigm of completion.” The idea is simple: a student who accumulates 22 course credits and passes 5 Regents exams is ready to graduate and be prepared for the future. During our professional tenure, we’ve seen several different vehicles aimed at getting more students to that point – there was the New Compact for Learning a generation ago; that was followed by the standards movement, among others. The State asked us to get more students to meet those requirements and to graduate – and we did that. The graduation rate rose from 66% for the 2001 cohort to over 73% five years later, for the 2006 cohort. We did precisely what the State asked of us.
But now we face a new context of global economic competition that requires a paradigm shift and an acknowledgement that we have set the bar too low. It turns out that far too many graduates are ill-prepared for the rigors of college and careers. Far too many need remediation in college – and the data show that the more remedial classes you take, the more likely you are to drop out of college. Why does it matter that some students don’t graduate high school? Why is it so dangerous that so many who do graduate need remediation once they get to college (over 40% in our two-year SUNY institutions across the state)? Why is it so worrisome that fewer are graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math? Why are the Regents focusing on improving college and career readiness with such great intensity?
Over the past two years, the Regents have rightly focused the attention of the education community on the gap between our current performance and the goal of college and career readiness. As you know, the State raised the cut scores on the 3-8 exams and began reporting graduation rates based on Aspirational Performance Measures – measures designed to better capture what it means for a graduate to be college- and career-ready.
Theory of action for Standards and Assessments How many of you are familiar with the Common Core State Standards? The State is going to raise the standards and assessments are going to match.
These are the instructional shifts that are needed in order for students attain the standards. The State has articulated shifts in ELA and in Mathematics in partnership with the authors of the Core in order for us to have a framework through which to address the necessary changes in instruction demanded by the Common Core.
This shift involves simply reading more informational text – balancing the amount of literature with informational text. Elementary teachers are the students tour guide to world – to culture, to society. Rather than telling students about what is happening out there, we need to have them read about it. More literary non fiction, more information being conveyed through writing. Less fiction. Less telling and summarizing by the teacher.
Students must be ready to handle more informational text. In order to do this, teachers must work to build their own skills to deliver this Instead of “telling” the students information, have them read about it. We all must have a balance of accessing informational text; accessing non-fiction in general. And, all content teachers 6-12, must do this as well. The Common Core is asking that all teachers become reading teachers. For example, instead of telling students about the Civil Rights Movement, teachers find text for them to read about the Civil Rights Movement. The way that content should be delivered is through sources; through texts, through data, through information online.
Students must be reading in all content areas. Increasingly complex texts throughout P-12. The Common Core is often defining grade level text complexity as texts that are 2-3 grade levels more complex than the current grade level texts in school so that they are actually prepared to access the complexity they encounter in careers and college. Appendix B of the Common Core State Standards includes a list of texts that model levels of complexity for every grade level. This is an important portion of standards and should be reviewed.
Students need to develop the ability to engage in rich, evidence-based dialogue about a text they have read. Having students have conversations about text and teachers’ facilitation of these conversations, requires a higher level of sophistication for both teachers and students . Rather than the quicker connections between text and self, teachers must now train students to stay in the text, to draw conclusions and make arguments about the text and do so through the text itself. Teachers will often be asking, “where do you see that in the text? What paragraph? What sentence? What word?” students must begin to think and argue through and with texts by constantly being asked to find evidence in what they have read.
This is evidence based WRITING about texts. We are shifting away from an overemphasis on narrative writing because it is a skill not often demanded by career and college. What IS demanded by career and college is to synthesize and react to what we have read. Therefore, the Common Core asks that students, across content areas, are being asked to interact with and make arguments through sources – texts, data, etc. Students must be trained to use the evidence they collect from what they read in order to form cogent and convincing argument in the text they produce.
What the Common Core is asking of us is to consistently develop students ability to use and access words that are showing up in everyday vocabulary but that are slightly out of reach for our students. It is really about giving students the right tools. There are certain words that are great tools as the students will see them in lots of context; when they read, across different disciplines etc. There are other words that are interesting and may come up in certain areas; content specific words like “amoeba;” or there are other words that are sort of esoteric and interesting but they are not words that students will confront frequently as they read. It is important to be strategic about the kind of vocabulary we are teaching. We need to consider what category these words fall in to. Isabel Beck talks about Tier I words as very common words, Tier 2 as words that are powerfully useful and frequently occurring and Tier 3 as domain-specific words. The challenge is in figuring out which words are Tier 2 words and which words to teach. This takes careful planning. it is important to understand the nuances between words, people tend to over rely on synonyms – i.e.. happy and pleased. The author makes a choice between these words. To identify these Tier 2 words it is important to understand what the author is conveying and also to know what words are really going to occur most frequently. Regarding synonyms, fewer words may be taught but also teach the web of words around them. The goal is for the students to not only know the words as a reader, but invest in the words as a writer.
In reference to the TIMMS study, there is power of the eraser and a gift of time. The Core is asking us to prioritize student and teacher time, to excise out much of what is currently being taught so that we can put an end to the mile wide, inch deep phenomenon that is American Math education and create opportunities for students to dive deeply into the central and critical math concepts. We are asking teachers to focus their time and energy so that the students are able to do the same.
Focus on the math that matters most Focusing on far fewer topics and treat them with much better care and detail. As shown by the TIMMS study, in the high performing countries there is a relentless focus on specific areas of mathematics ie. addition and subtraction and the quantities they measure at the K-2 level. For the first time, we will model these countries by having fewer topics learned more deeply. These core masteries will lead much fuller level of understanding. In middle and high school, students with this mastery can move on to do work in data and statistics and applying their knowledge to fields such as Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus. It will also enable them to engage in rich work in modeling multiple representation to other fields such as economics.
We need to ask ourselves – How does the work I’m doing affect work at the next grade level? Coherence is about the scope and sequence of those priority standards across grade bands. How does multiplication get addressed across grades 3-5? How do linear equations get handled between 8 and 9? What must students know when they arrive, what will they know when they leave a certain grade level?
Fluency is the quick mathematical content; what you should quickly know. It should be recalled very quickly. It allows students to get to application much faster and get to deeper understanding. We need to create contests in our schools around these fluencies. This can be a fun project. Deeper understanding is a result of fluency. Students are able to articulate their mathematical reasoning, they are able to access their answers through a couple of different vantage points; it’s not just getting to yes; it’s not just getting the answer but knowing why. Students and teachers need to have a very deep understanding of the priority math concepts in order to manipulate them, articulate them, and come at them from different directions.
Make these a fun project; create contests around these fluencies
The Common Core is built on the assumption that only through deep conceptual understanding can students build their math skills over time and arrive at college and career readiness by the time they leave high school. The assumption here is that students who have deep conceptual understanding can: Find “answers” through a number of different routes Articulate their mathematical reasoning Be fluent in the necessary baseline functions in math, so that they are able to spend their thinking and processing time unpacking mathematical facts and make meaning out of them. Rely on their teachers’ deep conceptual understanding and intimacy with the math concepts
The Common Core demands that all students engage in real world application of math concepts. Through applications, teachers teach and measure students’ ability to determine which math is appropriate and how their reasoning should be used to solve complex problems. In college and career, students will need to solve math problems on a regular basis without being prompted to do so.
This is an end to the false dichotomy of the “math wars.” It is really about dual intensity; the need to be able to practice and do the application. Both things are critical.
There is a video series the State has provided on EngageNY.org about these shifts. Viewing these videos is one way that teachers can get ready for these shifts. Each video is accompanied by suggested professional development experiences. This is not a time for teachers or district personnel to lock ourselves in a room and create elaborate soup-to-nuts curriculum. Rather, this is a time for teams of teachers to get together to understand what the CCSS is asking of us and to begin to get smarter in the places we must. By watching the videos and doing the thinking required to plan and teach this way, teachers will be prepared to execute one aligned unit per semester. For ELA and Literacy, this means selecting a text and carefully writing evidence based questions about it. For math, this means deciding what units or concepts much be taken out so that teachers and students can spend three days to three weeks on one concept until every single student has reached deep conceptual understanding.
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