COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS OVERVIEW

1. COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS OVERVIEW JULY 25, 2012 Mr. Tony Cook Mrs. Andrea Patterson

2. What is the CCSS Initiative? • An initiative of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers • A significant and historic opportunity for states to collectively develop and adopt a core set of academic standards in mathematics and English language arts • Single largest enterprise wide initiative ever undertaken in American K-12 schools • Largest change in classroom expectations ever

3. What are the CCSS? • Aligned with college and work expectations • Rigorous content requiring higher-order thinking and application of knowledge • Internationally benchmarked • Evidence-and/or research-based

4. Rationale for CCSS • Provides consistency across states • Prepares students to compete globally • Allows for more focused professional development • Allows for the development of a common assessment • Provides the opportunity to compare and evaluate policies that affect student achievement across states • US K-12 students have fallen to the middle of the pack in global education rankings

5. Implementation Timeline • 2011-2012 Grades K-2 • 2012-2013 Grades 3-8 • 2013-2014 Grades 9-12 • 2014-2015 Live Assessments

6. How Will Instruction Change? • Increase in rigor and relevance • Emphasis on higher order thinking skills • Move toward performance-based learning opportunities • More emphasis on research and writing • Increased use of technology to present products

7. SCHOOLS DO NOT HAVE SUBSTANTIAL EXPERIENCE WITH ENTERPRISE CHANGE • Common Core Standards require significant change for every teacher. • Common Core Standards require significant change for every principal. • Common Core Standards require immediate action even though implementation is over time.

8. English Language Arts Shifts • Balancing informational text and literary text • Building knowledge in the disciplines • Focusing on text complexity and what students read • Requiring text-based answers • Writing about sources (evidence) • Stressing academic and domain-specific vocabulary

9. Percentage Distribution of Literary and Informational Passages

10. Informational Text • Much of our knowledge base comes from informational text. • Informational text makes up vast majority of required reading in college and the workplace (80%). • Informational text is harder for students to comprehend than narrative text. • Students are asked to read very little of informational text in elementary and middle school (7-15%). • Utilize a balanced literacy approach (reader’s workshop, writer’s workshop, literature circles).

11. Evidence Based Reading and Writing • Most college and workplace writing is evidence-based and expository in nature. • The standards in writing ask students to respond to evidence-based writing prompts (inform/argue). • The standards in reading require students to respond to text-dependent questions with evidence-based claims. • Rich and rigorous conversations are dependent on a common text. • Students develop habits for crafting arguments in conversation and in writing. • Evaluate others use of evidence.

12. MAJOR SHIFT: TEXT-DEPENDENT QUESTIONS • Far longer amounts of classroom time spent on text worth reading and rereading carefully • Base answers on what has been read, not on opinions or experience • Recent study found that 80% of the questions students were asked when they were reading are answerable without direct reference to the text being read.

13. ARGUMENTS CONTAIN • A general topic or main contention • CLAIMS or elaborations on the topic • EVIDENCE for the claims made • EXPLANATION of HOW evidence SUPPORTS the claims • Anticipated response (pro or con)

14. To Argue…and Inform…in Writing CCSS Requires Argument/Evidence-Based Writing

15. Complex Text • The gap between complexity of college and high school texts is huge! • The Common Core Standards include a staircase of increasing text complexity from elementary through high school • The Common Core Standards focus on building vocabulary that is shared across many types of complex texts and many content areas • Teachers need to be patient. Create more time and space in curriculum for close and careful reading of complex text. • Expose students to text that is more complex than their reading level suggests.

16. Lexile Bands

17. ACT Study- Schmeiser, 2006 • Students who were Unprepared in READING had a 1% chance of later success in science and 15% chance of success in math • Students who were Prepared in READING had a 32% chance of later success in science and 67% chance of later success in math

18. Acquiring Vocabulary • Three tiers of words are vital for comprehension and vocabulary development. Tier 1-everyday speech Tier 2-general academic words Tier 3-domain-specific words

19. KINDERGARTEN ESSENTIAL VOCABULARY IN CCSS ELA MATH • Stanza Attribute • Preference Decompose • Punctuation Decomposition • Collaborate Composition • Illustrator Hexagon • Brainstorm Dimensional • Non-fiction Vertices

20. Math Shifts • Focus on key topics at each grade level • Coherent progressions across grade levels • Fluency • Deep understanding • Applications • Mathematical practices that foster reasoning, modeling, and sense-making

21. Focus • Focus strongly where the standards focus! • Significantly narrow the scope of content and deepen how time and energy is spent in the math classroom. • Focus deeply only on what is emphasized in the standards, so that students gain strong foundations.

22. Coherence • Think across grades, and link to major topics. • Carefully connect the learning within and across grades so that students can build new understanding onto foundations built in previous years. • Begin to count on solid conceptual understanding of core content and then build on it. Each standard is not a new event, but an extension of previous learning.

23. Standards for Mathematical Practice • Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them • Reason abstractly and quantitatively • Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others • Model with mathematics • Use appropriate tools strategically • Attend to precision • Look for and make use of structure • Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning

24. Math Priorities

25. STANDARDS FOR MATHEMATICAL PRACTICE IN A CLASSROOM McDonald’s Claim Wikipedia reports that 8% of all Americans eat at McDonald’s every day. In the US, there are approximately 310 million Americans and 12,800 McDonald’s. The average McDonald’s store can serve 1,500 people per day. Do you believe the Wikipedia report to be true? Create a mathematical argument to justify your position.

26. PARCC • Mississippi is a governing state in the PARCC consortium; as such, Mississippi will be on the governing board that makes decisions about the assessment design and development. • The assessment design was revised in June 2011.

27. Two Components of the Summative Assessment Performance Assessment • Given primarily on the computer; composed primarily of performance tasks with emphasis on hard-to- measure standards • Results will be returned in 2 weeks • This assessment will be given 75% into the school year. End of Year Assessment • Given on computer with multiple item types • Scored entirely by computer for fast results *These two assessments will be combined for an overall score.

28. The Performance Assessment • Over several class periods students will complete a project-like task that draws on a range of skills. • ELA tasks will focus on writing effectively when analyzing texts, using evidence from the texts to support claims. • Math tasks will require students to apply key mathematical skills, concepts, and processes to solve complex problems of the types encountered in everyday life, work, and decision-making

29. The End-of-Year Assessment • This assessment will consist of a range of item types including innovative technology-enhanced items to sample the full set of grade-level standards. • Expect to see multiple choice items, open ended questions, etc.

30. Speaking/Listening Assessment • There will be a speaking/listening assessment. Teachers will score this assessment using a rubric. This will not be used for accountability. • Scores may be used within students’ grades.

31. Optional Formative Assessments • There are two formative assessments that districts may choose to administer. These will not count towards accountability. • The first assessment would be given at the beginning of the year, and the second assessment would be administered at the middle of the year.

32. What Can We Start Doing Now? • Become familiar with the new Lexileframework • Fill classrooms with informative and nonfiction texts • Ask students to write to explain their answers • Incorporate open ended questions • Integrate the math practices in your lessons • Provide speaking/listening opportunities for students

33. Classroom Libraries • Build your classroom libraries! • Fill your library with a variety of genres. Organize baskets by genre, author, or series. • Make sure there are a variety of levels within each basket.

34. MCT 2 Assessment The following test item is from the reading portion of a grade 6 MCT 2 language arts practice test. The word daunting is used in lines 3 and 31 of the poem. Based upon the context clues, what does dauntingmean? A.  Clever and tricky B.  Final and endless C.  Surprising and shocking D.  Threatening and frightening

35. Common Core Assessment The following is an example of what an item from the Common Core assessment might look like. The poet uses the word daunting several times in his poem. Using the context clues in the poem, what do you think the word daunting means, and why did the author choose to use the word daunting to express his feelings about the new school? Be sure to explain your answer and cite evidence from the poem.

36. A KEY FEAR TO ADDRESS As much as we fear the NEW…We fear giving up the OLD even more!

37. CCSS Resources • www.achievethecore.org • http://parcconlineorg/parcc-content-frameworks • www.pta.org/4446.htm • www.corestandards.org • www.mde.k12.ms.us(go to Hot Topics)