Prioritizing the Common Core


Book Description

The consensus among educators nationwide is that in-depth instruction paired with focused assessment of essential concepts and skills are far more effective than superficially covering every concept and skill in the standards. Educators are faced with the task of teaching all standards while meeting the extraordinary range of student learning needs. Prioritizing the Common Core offers common sense solutions to the dilemmas teachers face today in implementing the new, more rigorous national standards. Chapters present a rationale for prioritizing the Common Core, a step-by-step process for prioritizing standards in language arts and mathematics, strategies for soliciting feedback and input from everyone in the district or school prior to the final determination of the Priority Standards, and detailed summaries of the process schools in six different districts used to identify their Priority Standards, with accompanying commentary by those who directed the work.




Reading and Writing Instruction for Second- and Third-Grade Classrooms in a PLC at Work®


Book Description

Fully prepare students to begin the pivotal transition from learning to read to reading to learn. Written for individual teachers and collaborative teams, this resource outlines how to craft instruction to ensure every learner masters literacy expectations in second and third grade. Readers will gain a wealth of strategies and practices for designing standards-aligned instruction, developing quality assessment, providing timely interventions, and more. Use this resource to address specific literacy challenges found within the second- and third-grade band: Understand the role professional learning communities (PLCs) play in literacy development. Learn how teams of teachers can maximize their collective strengths to make profound impacts on student literacy and reading comprehension. Obtain instructional strategies and tools, such as the pre-unit protocol (PREP), for unpacking and clarifying literacy standards. Observe how to collaboratively score quality assessments as a team and conduct effective data inquiry and analysis. Study the powerful impact literacy has on student engagement and inclusivity in grades two and three. Contents: Introduction: Every Teacher Is a Literacy Teacher Chapter 1: Establish Clarity About Student Learning Expectations Chapter 2: Examine Assessment Options for Literacy Chapter 3: Create a Learning Progression to Guide Instruction and Assessment Chapter 4: Develop Collective Understanding of Learning Expectations Chapter 5: Respond to Data to Ensure All Students Learn Chapter 6: Differentiate Instruction With Gradual Release of Responsibility Chapter 7: Plan High-Quality Literacy Instruction Chapter 8: Select Appropriate Instructional Strategies Chapter 9: Consider Equity in Literacy Epilogue Appendix A: List of Figures and Tables Appendix B: Templates and Tools Appendix C: Process for Prioritizing Standards Appendix D: Essential Understandings and Guiding Questions References and Resources Index




Assessment for Learning


Book Description

This book guides teachers as they develop and analyze meaningful assignments that can be used as formative assessments in the classroom. This system is easy and will result in relevant data to use for differentiation. The assessments are directly based on the work of the classroom rather than developed by an outside entity. They reflect the real work of the classroom and can be used to provide students, parents, and administrators with specific targeted feedback about the learning. In addition, teachers are guided in the design of differentiated assignments to help their students reach the grade level standards. Specific, real-world examples that can be easily replicated Structures for analyzing student work and differentiation instruction Process will result in meaningful assessment pieces to monitor student learning Perfect for a school or grade-level team Guided reflection and application in each chapter




Teaching for Student Learning


Book Description

Teaching for Student Learning shows teachers how to integrate research and the wisdom of practice into their teaching, emphasizing how accomplished teachers acquire and apply evidence-based practices in support of student learning.




Unwrapping the Common Core


Book Description

"Unwrapping" the Common Core is a stand-alone, how-to guide for busy educators who need a proven way to work with the new standards. The process of "unwrapping" is a powerful tool for effectively deconstructing state standards. This easy-to-read format includes grade-specific examples of "unwrapped" standards, enabling educators to confidently apply this simple, proven technique for making rigorous new standards manageable. Part One describes the complete "unwrapping" process with examples in both English language arts and literacy and mathematics. Part Two contains 60 "unwrapped" Common Core English language arts and math examples, each specific to one of the four grade spans: K 2, 3 5, 6 8, and 9 12. Part Three illustrates where "unwrapping" fits in the big picture of an integrated standards-assessment-curriculum-instruction system."





Book Description

Leverage teamwork to integrate the CCSS into your curriculum, and build on a foundational knowledge of PLCs. You’ll gain a comprehensive understanding of the shifts required to implement the standards in core content areas and find valuable tips and strategies for creating strong collaborative practices. Identify the essential standards, determine learning targets, define proficiency, learn how to design rigorous assessments, and more.




Great Teaching by Design


Book Description

Turn good intentions into better outcomes—by design! Why leave student success up to chance? By combining your intuition and experience with the latest research on high-impact learning practices, you can evolve your teaching from good to great and make a lasting difference for your students. Organized around the DIIE framework, Great Teaching by Design takes you step-by-step from intention to implementation to accelerate the impact your teaching has on student learning. Inside, you’ll find • A deep dive into the four stages of the DIIE model: Diagnosis and Discovery, Intervention, Implementation, and Evaluation • A fresh look at the Visible Learning research, which identifies the most powerful strategies for teaching and learning • Stories of best practices in action and examples from classrooms around the world Great teaching may come by chance, but it will come by design. Whether you’re new to teaching or looking to give your instruction a boost, take up the challenge and discover a new framework for teaching with true intentionality.




Common Formative Assessments 2.0


Book Description

Assessments that improve the speed and quality of learning—fully updated for teacher teams! In this expanded, all-new edition, author Larry Ainsworth provides a system of intentionally aligned components (standards, instruction, assessments, and data analysis) that all work together to improve student learning. Readers will learn to: Build the “highway” to aligned assessments Decide the learning intentions and student success criteria for a unit of study Evaluate and revise assessment questions for quality Plan the learning progressions for students to attain the learning intentions Create quick progress checks to coincide with the learning progressions Use assessment results as feedback to adjust instruction and student learning strategies Upgrade your CFAs using CFA 2.0! CFA 2.0 is so much more than assessment design. It shows teachers how they can intentionally align standards, instruction, assessment, and data analysis in every unit of study.




The Cost-Effectiveness of 22 Approaches for Raising Student Achievement


Book Description

As a consequence of the federal "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) law, there is tremendous pressure on school principals, teachers, school superintendents, district staff, state departments of education and governors to maximize the increase in student achievement that is obtained with every dollar of expenditure. Currently, teachers are forced to rely on extremely inefficient approaches that take enormous amounts of time, both during the school day and throughout the K-12 learning years. This is experienced in terms of the reduced time that is available to teach subjects other than math and reading, as schools resort to double periods of math, double periods of reading, and enormous amounts of remedial instruction that directly reduce the time available for other subjects including science, art, and music. In contrast, this book suggests that student achievement may be increased in a way that is not only cost-effective in dollar terms, but efficient in the sense that it does not rely on unusual investments in the time required to obtain results. The book draws upon a wealth of cost-effectiveness data to dispel common notions about "what works" in addressing the achievement gap: increased expenditure per pupil, charter schools, voucher programs, increased educational accountability, class size reduction, comprehensive school reform, increased teacher salaries, more selective teacher recruitment, the use of "value-added" methods to measure and reward teacher performance, the use of National Board teacher certification to identify high-performing teachers, and a host of other approaches.




Rigorous Curriculum Design


Book Description

The need for a cohesive and comprehensive curriculum that intentionally connects standards, instruction, and assessment has never been more pressing. For educators to meet the challenging learning needs of students they must have a clear road map to follow throughout the school year. Rigorous Curriculum Design presents a carefully sequenced, hands-on model that curriculum designers and educators in every school system can follow to create a progression of units of study that keeps all areas tightly focused and connected.