States will begin testing students under the Common Core State Standards in 2014. PARCC and SABC are the testing consortiums developing online or computerized tests. Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium or SBAC. At $31/student, SABC provides testing services to thirty-one member states (links are to state departments of education): California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, [...]
April 22, 2013
Common Core is Constructivism Math
What is Common Core Math? It is math instruction written from a Constructivist Theory. Every time educators sit down to write a curriculum, they must have a controlling set of ideas, a theory of teaching, that helps them decide what to include or exclude. For the Common Core Mathematics, that education theory is called Constructivist [...]
April 18, 2013
Next Gen Science Standards: What Topic at What Grade?
What is Common Core Science? In a press release on April 9, the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards), it was announced that the final version of the new science standards are now available. Here some answers to questions being raised about the standards, a FAQ. Will the NGSS become the Common Core Science Standards? The [...]
April 11, 2013
CCSS Career Connections: Guest Speaker in Mathematics?
“Tomorrow we will have a guest speaker.” Surely this statement must always be followed by the announcement of a guest lecture in History, an actor or singer for the Drama class, a local park ranger or chemical engineer for the Sciences, or a published author to speak to the Language Arts classes. “Our guest will [...]
April 9, 2013
Fact or Opinion: A CCSS ELA Lesson Plan
Facts. They are important. They are the basis of our educational system, the foundation of science and industry, and a clear emphasis in the Common Core State Standards. In both reading and writing, students will be expected to use fact based evidence of their comprehension and compositions. Yet our students are not always clear on [...]
April 4, 2013
Setting: When Where Matters–A CCSS Lesson Plan
When we ask students to analyze literature we often concentrate on the plot, character development, or sequence of events because they are critical to understanding the meaning of the story. But sometimes the setting of the book can be just as important as the characters. The setting can actually drive the plot of the story. [...]
March 25, 2013
CCSS: Why is a Public Policy Document Copyrighted?
When you think of a public policy document, you rarely think of a document that is copyrighted. Yet, that’s exactly the case for the Common Core State Standards. It’s a strange and unsettling thing. The Common Core State Standards are copyrighted: Any publication or public display shall include the following notice: “© Copyright 2010. National [...]
March 21, 2013
Practical Math: CCSS CTE Classroom Tasks
Here’s a typical complaint from an algebra student: “Why do I need to know this stuff? I’ll never use it!” Keeping the math standards practical is necessary, but often difficult. Toward that end, Achieve, Inc. has provided a series of practical tasks and shown how they relate to real-world math skills in areas such as [...]
March 20, 2013
Rhode Island Adults: 60% Fail Math Test
In an interesting twist on high-stakes testing, students in Rhode Island asked politicians, businessmen and scientists to take the math portion of a high-stakes test. Today, they released the results and here is their press release. March 19, 2013 STUDENTS RELEASE “TAKE THE TEST” RESULTS – SUPER MAJORITY OF ACCOMPLISHED PROFESSIONALS SCORE BELOW DIPLOMA THRESHOLD [...]
March 18, 2013
Fake Website: Teach Students to Assess Websites
by Stephanie Bearce Years ago if a child asked a teacher the meaning of a word, the teacher’s automatic answer was “Look it up in the dictionary.” Now the temptation is to say “Google it.” The internet is here to stay and with it comes a plethora of information sites, access to online magazines, eBooks, [...]
