This set of excercises is designed to support discussion about the changes written into the CORE among the students in my Curriculum Improvement Classes for the 2013 Spring Semester.  The tables focus on the Anchor Standards and the Standards for Mathematical Practice and are intended to help school leaders imagine the broad changes asked by the CCSS and by PARCC and to brainstorm about how they might measure these new standards.

I am including them here in order to provide a set of resources for leaders seeking to learn the Core and support beneficial change in their schools.   I will be giving the students in my Curriculum Improvement classes these exercises and will discuss how they rolled out in future blog posts.

 

Exercise 1: ELA CCSS Overview

Please look over the CCSS Anchor Standards for Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking and align the vision for instruction in those documents with data from your school.

1. Please go to the CCSS homepage at http://www.corestandards.org/.  Look over any parts of the webpage that have changed since you were last on the site.
2. Please go to the webinar on the homepage.  We would like you to watch the first part of the webinar, from minute 2:00 to minute 14:00, just to get an overview of the CCSS.
   1. The webinar is on the bottom right hand corner of the CCSS homepage.
3. Please go to the CCSS Anchor Standards in English Language Arts and other subjects at http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf, and choose a specific grade level either K-5 or 6-12 and review the anchor standards on the pages listed in the box below.

Table 1:  CCSS Webpages and Page Numbers for Anchor Standards as of 12/31/2012

CCSS Webpages Homepage http://www.corestandards.org/ Webinar link on http://www.corestandards.org/ Standards on http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards CCSS Anchor Standards Grades K-5 Please read pages 10, 18, 22, 25 CCSS Anchor Standards Grades 6-12 Please read pages 35, 41, 48, 51

 

Once you have looked over the Anchor Standards, please complete the following charts, and then discuss them.  In my Curriculum Improvement Class these charts are not graded.  Instead they are for discussion, planning, and development.

Table 2: Vision for Instruction Written into the Standard

CCSS Anchor Standard	Vision of Instruction: What does College Readiness Look Like at Your School for Your Grade Levels?
Reading
Writing
Speaking and Listening
Language
Research

 

Table 3: How is the Standard Measured and How Might it be at Your School. 

CCSS Anchor Standard	How is the Standard Measured?	How Might it be?
Reading
Writing
Speaking and Listening
Language
Research

 

Exorcise 2: CCSS Mathematical Practice Standards

I asked the students in my Curriculum Improvement classes to do the following,ungraded, homework assignment.

Please read over the CCSS standards for mathematical practice and then discuss the standards with one teacher and one school leader—e. g. your principal, assistant principal, or mathematics coach.  Please ask their help to fill out Table 1 below for your chosen grade level group—e. g. primary, intermediate, middle school, high school.  Please discuss Table 2 with them and bring both tables to class.

 

CCSS Standards for Mathematical Practice http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_Math%20Standards.pdf

• Please read pages 6-8

Table 1: Vision for Instruction Written into the Standard

CCSS Mathematics Guidance	Vision of Instruction: What does College Readiness Look Like at Your School?
Reading Mathematically
Writing Mathematically
Problem Solving
Fluency
OPTIONAL STANDARD FROM PAGES 6-8

 

Table 2: How is the Standard Measured and How Might it be at Your School. 

CCSS Mathematics Guidance	How is the Standard Currently Measured?	How Might it be?
Reading Mathematically
Writing Mathematically
Problem Solving
Fluency
OPTIONAL STANDARD FROM PAGES 6-8

 

Exercise 3: PARCC Comparison

This is another homework assignment from my Curriculum Improvement class. I ask them to do it on Week four of the course, after students have spent a great deal of time looking over their own school’s school improvement plan and identifying a problem based on data from the Florida high stakes assessment and then a particular grade level group to focus on for the rest of the course.  That problem is then written into Table 1, below.

Please work with another leader or teacher in your school to fill out Tables 1-3.  This exercise will not be collected.  Instead it will be used to guide class discussion.

Table 1: Major Area of Improvement and Grade Level Group

Major Subject Area for Improvement and Grade Level Group based on state assessment data—e. g. primary reading or middle school mathematics

 

Please go to the PARCC website and choose the most critical grade level for the grade level group you are attempting to improve.  Use the ELA and Mathematics frameworks to imagine improvement at your school.

http://www.parcconline.org/parcc-model-content-frameworks

Table 2: Vision for Instruction Based on the PARCC Content Frameworks

PARCC Guidance for__________Grade Level	What does Good Instruction Look Like? What does PARCC ask students to learn? (Please Add Rows if Necessary)	Percentage of Teachers Implementing	Quality of Implementation	Data School Collects or Might Collect
Reading
Writing
Research
Mathematics