6 Ways Graphite™ Supports Teachers Implementing #CCSS

Here what teachers have to say here.

I recently shared that Graphite, a new, free service from Common Sense Media provides rigorous ratings and reviews of apps, games, websites, and digital curricula. This allows teachers and school leaders to connect in important ways to make informed decisions about which technology to integrate into the curriculum via reviews and “Field Notes” written by innovative educators who are using these products in the classroom.

Not only does Graphite provide an efficient and effective way to assess technology programs, but it also has a terrific component allowing educators to see how each website or app supports the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Below are six ways to do just that.

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Common Core practice tests now available online

From eSchool News "Site of the Week:"View more Sites of the Week

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, one of two collections of states that are designing online tests aligned with the Common Core standards, has released online practice tests in both ELA and math for students in grades 3-8 and 11.

The tests will help schools prepare for implementation of the Smarter Balanced Assessment System in the 2014-15 school year, the organization says.

The practice tests allow teachers, students, parents, and other stakeholders to experience the features of online testing and gain insight into how Smarter Balanced will assess students’ mastery of the Common Core. However, they don’t encompass the full range of content that students will encounter on the spring 2014 Field Test and should not be used to guide instructional decisions, the consortium warns.

The practice tests include constructed-response, selected-response, and technology-enhanced questions. Performance tasks, which are longer activities that ask students to apply their knowledge to solving “real-world” problems, are available for ELA and will be added for math by this fall. Scoring keys will be available July 1.

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Where does world-changing fit into the #CCSS ?

My friend Angela Maiers has been visiting me in New York and came over last week totally jazzed about helping kids in a school she visited change the world during the last couple days of school. For many teachers, however, it is  not clear where world-changing fits within the testing and standards each student is required to meet at every grade level and in every subject. 

Instead, the focus is competition and acquisition, mastery, and assessment of skills as outlined in this video.

Three-Minute Video Explaining the Common Core State Standards from CGCS Video Maker on Vimeo.

Success is focused on individual performance indicators that can be summed up by data, achievement reports, test results, and transcripts, It is not clear where we fit inspiring students to use their passion, skills, talents, and abilities to do the work that Angela describes as W.O.W. (worthy of the world).
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More Reading. More Writing. More Engaged Citizens of the World.

By Sarah Mulhern Gross. Cross posted on March 6, 2013 on The Reading Zone

Cum hoc non propter hoc.

In last week’s NY Daily News, Robert Pondiscio, a former public school teacher and now the executive director of CitizenshipFirst, lauds the "… abandoning the literacy curriculum used to teach a generation of our children to read”. In the shift to the Common Core, he says we are leaving behind the balanced literacy approach of Lucy Calkins and the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, which he says has done a disservice to students. 

Having taught at a Project school and at non-Project schools, I beg to differ.

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Common core ignores the power of the interests and ideas that come from our students and teachers - Deborah Meier

Editor’s note:  I feel fortunate to be living during a period in our history where for the first time we can easily form social learning circles that bring together from around the world, experts, authors, and others that share passions and can engage in rich and meaningful dialogue. The power of the technology to connect in ways never before possible is a game changer when it comes to learning. I have brought together one such amazing network of people who come together to think about and grapple with issues of ed reform and alternatives to the status quo with The Innovative Educator group.  Here is a piece of that learning where education icon Deborah Meier shares some of her thoughts on the common core.

Deborah Meier - Shares

Its a nice thought--that it [Common Core] is offering a "common language". I wish it were. But common core as presently understood is a 13 year mandatory curriculum (developed largely by experts in testing, not the subject matter being tested) of what is to be taught--and in what sequence. It ignores the power of the interests and ideas that come from students and teachers as the basis for forming curriculum"--or of picking up from the world around us our "curriculum". Starting "where we are" intellectually and moving out from there--a common approach to thematic studies, for example. Or spending months on one "small" part of history or science, in order to be able to ask deeper questions and make deeper sense--rather than covering" a lot in order to be prepared for shallow tests. (Uncovering vs covering as we sometimes say.) etc, etc.

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Big news! Turns out it is okay if you don’t go to college.

Didja hear it?  If you were able to catch any of NBC’s Education Nation conversation, It was ever so subtle, but it was there. The part of the conversation that disturbingly has been the banned from the Common Core College and Career Readiness mantra.

If you heard it you noticed that the language is changing, slowly but surely, from the lips of the politicians, corporate funders, and even from the administrators who feel they must not deviate from the party line (even when they know it's wrong) lest they lose their jobs.

So, what's the big idea that is ever so softly slipping through the lips of those engaged in the politically correct education conversation?

The new and improved stats and facts have arrived, and....

College AND career readiness is OUTTA HERE!

In its place is an important conjunction that many of us were shut down and smacked down if we dared to utter those two ugly letters.

So what are the two little letters that could change everything?
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