Using Common Core Standards to Enhance Classroom Instruction & Assessment


Book Description

Discover how to weave an in-depth understanding of the Common Core into successful classroom practice with this two-part resource. You’ll learn how to power the standards with guided assessment and measure student progress in a way that accurately reflects learning. Included are hundreds of ready-to-use, research-based proficiency scales for both English language arts and mathematics.




RTI in the Common Core Classroom


Book Description

Schools and teachers have struggled to integrate Common Core State Standards (CCSS) into their local Response to Intervention (RTI) systems. This book offers an adaptable framework and practical tips to assist educational professionals charged with making this connection in their schools, districts, and classrooms for English language arts. Based on years of experience, we know that students perform best when provided with research-based instruction, frequent progress monitoring, and timely and targeted interventions. Focusing on what the research tells us about how children learn, this highly practical guide can serve as the core of language arts instruction. RTI in the Common Core Classroom will guide today’s classroom teachers, reading coaches, and administrators in their efforts to support all students in meeting literacy standards, including individuals with mild to moderate disabilities. Book Features: A research-based, innovative approach for implementing RTI and the Common Core curriculum. Effective teaching and assessment practices in foundational reading skills, reading comprehension, and writing. User-friendly design including, research highlight boxes, recommended reading lists, questions for professional learning communities, prompts, sample assignments, student writing excerpts, a Q & A section, and a trait-weighting table. “Sharon Vaughn is the perfect classroom expert to help teachers mesh the requirements of any RTI program with high standards, whether they be CCSS, state, or local.” —Susan B. Neuman, New York University “Teaching to the unique abilities of an increasingly diverse group of students is a persistent challenge in public education. Whether used in a Common Core classroom or school system, Dr. Vaughn’s new book is yet another invaluable tool for teachers and leaders to use RTI to accelerate achievement for all students.” —Larkin Tackett, executive director, Austin Region, IDEA Public Schools







The Standards-Based Classroom


Book Description

Get to know which practices related to curriculum, instruction, and assessment are essential to make learning the goal for every student! You’ll learn how to Create learning targets that are scalable and transferable within and across units Develop instructional scales for each learning target Design non-scored practice activities and assessments Introduce and model skills that will be assessed and design tasks that allow students to use these skills Differentiate instruction and activities based on data from various types of assessments Maintain a gradebook that tracks summative achievement of learning targets, and score assessments accordingly Communicate progress clearly and efficiently with students and families




College Knowledge


Book Description

Although more and more students have the test scores and transcripts to get into college, far too many are struggling once they get there. These students are surprised to find that college coursework demands so much more of them than high school. For the first time, they are asked to think deeply, write extensively, document assertions, solve non-routine problems, apply concepts, and accept unvarnished critiques of their work. College Knowledge confronts this problem by looking at the disconnect between what high schools do and what colleges expect and proposes a solution by identifying what students need to know and be able to do in order to succeed. The book is based on an extensive three-year project sponsored by the Association of American Universities in partnership with The Pew Charitable Trusts. This landmark research identified what it takes to succeed in entry-level university courses. Based on the project's findings - and interviews with students, faculty, and staff - this groundbreaking book delineates the cognitive skills and subject area knowledge that college-bound students need to master in order to succeed in today's colleges and universities. These Standards for Success cover the major subject areas of English, mathematics, natural sciences, social sciences, second languages, and the arts.




Proficiency Scales for the New Science Standards


Book Description

Transform an in-depth understanding of the new science standards into successful classroom practice. You’ll learn how to align instruction and assessment with the science standards and create proficiency scales that can be used to plan all types of lessons. Discover hundreds of ready-to-use proficiency scales derived from the Next Generation Science Standards that are applicable to specific areas of science instruction.




Using Quality Feedback to Guide Professional Learning


Book Description

Professional development just got more effective. To help teachers make positive changes for their students, transform your feedback! With this guide to quality feedback, you’ll promote professional growth clearly and successfully, with lasting results. Whether you work with novices, struggling teachers, or good teachers with potential for greatness, this book helps you give feedback that’s both heard and understood. Features include Research-based ideas aligned with the Learning Forward Standards for Professional Learning Structures for offering feedback on teacher-created assessments, in observations, and through videos Advice that fits seamlessly into existing initiatives Tools, artifacts, and examples of quality feedback in action




A Teacher's Guide to Using the Common Core State Standards With Gifted and Advanced Learners in the English/Language Arts


Book Description

A Teacher's Guide to Using the Common Core State Standards With Gifted and Advanced Learners in the English/Language Arts provides teachers and administrators a blueprint for differentiating the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts for gifted and advanced students through the use of acceleration, depth, complexity, and creativity within and across grade levels. It illustrates the differences between learning experiences for typical and advanced students based on the same standard and provides an array of examples across five of the information text and literary text standards while integrating the other aspects of language arts teaching and learning. The book highlights implementation features, such as classroom management and assessment of student work, that allow teachers to make data-based decisions about instruction for particular students. It also offers guidance to teachers on reading selections for advanced learners at all grade levels.




Educating One and All


Book Description

In the movement toward standards-based education, an important question stands out: How will this reform affect the 10% of school-aged children who have disabilities and thus qualify for special education? In Educating One and All, an expert committee addresses how to reconcile common learning for all students with individualized education for "one"â€"the unique student. The book makes recommendations to states and communities that have adopted standards-based reform and that seek policies and practices to make reform consistent with the requirements of special education. The committee explores the ideas, implementation issues, and legislative initiatives behind the tradition of special education for people with disabilities. It investigates the policy and practice implications of the current reform movement toward high educational standards for all students. Educating One and All examines the curricula and expected outcomes of standards-based education and the educational experience of students with disabilitiesâ€"and identifies points of alignment between the two areas. The volume documents the diverse population of students with disabilities and their school experiences. Because approaches to assessment and accountability are key to standards-based reforms, the committee analyzes how assessment systems currently address students with disabilities, including testing accommodations. The book addresses legal and resource implications, as well as parental participation in children's education.




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.