This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices. Some of the authors featured on this page include Kara Saternus, Barbara R. Blackburn, Sarah B. Bush, Susan Zimmermann, Karen S. Karp, James E. Warren, Amy Feiker Hollenbeck, Dana L. Bickmore, Steven T. Bickmore, and Alicia F. Saunders.
(2013). Standards Worrying Teachers, Education Week. Even as the Common Core State Standards are being put into practice across most of the country, nearly half of teachers feel unprepared to teach them, especially to disadvantaged students, according to a new survey. The study by the EPE Research Center found deep wells of concern among teachers about their readiness to meet the challenges posed by the common core in English/language arts and mathematics. More than two-thirds said they were not well enough prepared to teach the standards to English-language learners or students with disabilities. More than half said they were not yet ready to teach them to low-income students or those considered at risk of academic failure. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Academic Standards, Alignment (Education), Disadvantaged Youth
(2013). Years Later, Comprehension Strategies Still at Work, Reading Teacher. In this article, authors Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann reflect on comprehension strategy instruction 15¬ years after the publication of their book, "Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader's Workshop." They reassert their claim that to teach comprehension well, we must first read widely and scrutinize our own reading processes. They begin by using the structure from "Mosaic of Thought" in which they respond to a short selection to demonstrate the thinking strategies at work. Keene and Zimmermann report on the heartening progress in students' comprehension learning in the last 15¬ years but also caution that comprehension strategies are a means to an end, not the end goal in comprehension. They recommend ways for teachers to maximize comprehension strategy instruction in an era dominated by assessment and the Common Core State Standards. [More] Descriptors: Reading Comprehension, Reading Strategies, Reading Instruction, Reading Processes
(2013). Solving the Common Core Equation: Teaching Mathematics CCSS to Students with Moderate and Severe Disabilities, TEACHING Exceptional Children. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in mathematics were created to help all students become prepared for the demands of future careers and life in an age of technology. Similarly, students with moderate and severe disability will need these skills to meet these changing expectations. Although mathematics instruction could focus on a few of the earliest mathematics skills throughout the students school career, research presented in this article shows students with moderate and severe disability can learn skills that align with the grade level of their chronological age while also practicing early numeracy skills. This article provides teachers with a 6-step approach to providing instruction to students with moderate and severe disability aligned to the new CCSS. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Numeracy, Mathematics Skills, Mathematics Instruction
(2013). Mind the Comprehension Iceberg: Avoiding Titanic Mistakes with the CCSS, Reading Teacher. As teachers and leaders move forward in implementing the Common Core State Standards within classrooms across 46 states, it is essential to consider the question of what knowledge is included in the English Language Arts Standards, and what knowledge is not present. The authors of the Common Core delineate an increasingly complex body of knowledge across K-5 to support their vision of developing engaged and critical readers. However, missing in this document are the cognitive and comprehension strategies that expert readers use to construct meaning of text. In this article, we review the extensive body of research supporting explicit comprehension strategy instruction, and then illustrate the limited alignment between this knowledge base and the concepts articulated within the Common Core. Implications for instruction and planning are discussed in conclusion. [More] Descriptors: Academic Standards, State Standards, Reading Instruction, Reading Comprehension
(2013). OER and the Common Core, T.H.E. Journal. If anyone had thought to recognize a K-12 educational buzzword of the year for 2012, it would surely have been "open educational resources" (OER). Ed tech media has fairly hummed with the topic, largely with exciting predictions: OER would give cash-strapped K-12 educators access to high-quality tools and content for their classrooms at little or no cost. Now, as the implementation dates for the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) loom, districts are facing the need to buy new instructional materials aligned with the standards, and OER is a hotter topic than ever. The inventory of these open resources is exploding, and advocates such as the OER Commons and Achieve are providing districts and teachers with tools for determining the degree of standards alignment of these materials. All of which raises the question: Why hasn't every K-12 district in the country jumped on the OER bandwagon? [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Prediction, Instructional Materials, Elementary Secondary Education
(2013). Four Steps to Increasing Rigor in the Classroom, Leadership. Concern about rigor is not new, but its importance has been raised with the advent of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). However, the CCSS are only the beginning on a journey to increasing rigor in school. Equally important is the instructional rigor that supports the standards. Instructional rigor focuses on the how–what actually happens in the classroom when implementing the Common Core. Instructional rigor is creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels, each student is supported so he or she can learn at high levels, and each student demonstrates learning at high levels. There are four steps principals can take to support a focus on increased rigor in the classroom and school. These four steps are discussed in this article. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Educational Practices, Public Schools, Academic Standards
(2013). Community Partnerships: Pathways to Meaningful Mathematics, Teaching Children Mathematics. This article showcases the benefits of the alliance the authors have established during the past two years with the Barnes Foundation to add more mathematics activities to their repertoire and to integrate more art into their mathematics lessons. Recently, they decided to focus on activities at the K-grade 2 level that could be used as an on-site curriculum during school field trips or for follow-up lessons back in classrooms after a visit. They anticipate that the relationship will continue for the next few years to develop mathematics activities that align with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) (CCCSI 2010) and to integrate them with art-related activities that use paintings and objects, such as jewelry, metalwork, sculptures, and furniture, from the Barnes Foundation. [More] Descriptors: Elementary School Students, Partnerships in Education, Philanthropic Foundations, Mathematics Education
(2013). Test Rules Differ between Groups for Special Ed, Education Week. Champions of students with disabilities have long complained that those students are often an afterthought in state testing plans. Only after a test design is completed are educators asked to go back and adapt the questions for a student who is blind, who needs help accessing text or calculating numbers, or who must use a specialized device to register responses. The assessments for the Common Core State Standards have the potential to change that. States that have widely differing policies on handling accommodations, such as reading aloud as part of a test, have to come together and support a common policy. Disability-advocacy groups have registered their concerns that the accommodations policies might create a new level of bureaucracy that will ultimately make it harder for students to get the supports they need. Technology experts wonder if the tests will be able to be accessed by the different devices and software packages now in use. [More] Descriptors: Disabilities, Special Education, Testing Accommodations, State Standards
(2013). Q and A about the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards, Social Education. The "College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: State Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History" will soon be released. The C3 Framework was developed to serve two audiences: for states to upgrade their state social studies standards, and for practitioners–local school districts, schools, teachers and curriculum writers–to strengthen their social studies programs. Its objectives are to: (1) enhance the rigor of the social studies disciplines; (2) build the critical thinking, problem solving, and participatory skills necessary for students to become engaged citizens; and (3) align academic programs in social studies to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies. At the request of Social Education, NCSS President-Elect Michelle Herczog, who participated in the development of the C3 Framework, has provided the following Q and A for readers. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Social Studies, Educational Principles, Guidelines
(2013). Meeting Standard 10: Reading Complex Text, Principal Leadership. Most principals know about the Common Core State Standards, but they may not be aware that they are different from previous standards in one essential way: they emphasize students' capacity to understand complex texts. Standard 10 puts an unprecedented focus on texts and will fundamentally change assessments, textbooks, and teaching at the secondary level. Forward-thinking school leaders will initiate a schoolwide plan to accelerate the reading levels of weaker students and provide professional development to teachers for supporting students as they read more difficult texts. Two steps can prepare students to meet the increased reading levels: improve vocabulary and read widely and more deeply. Principals can model good habits and support teachers' professional learning as they adapt to the new standards. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Academic Standards, Principals, Knowledge Level
(2013). Initiating a Writing Revolution in Your School, Principal Leadership. Writing instruction is central to the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. It is embedded across all curricula. Under the Common Core guidelines, students must produce writing that includes not only narrative and literary responses as part of the language arts curriculum but also argumentative and informative/explanatory texts in such subjects as science and math. To ensure high-quality writing instruction, school leaders must first assess what writing teachers are already doing in the classroom. The next step is having a schoolwide conversation about how teachers define writing and what they know about teaching it. To assess how writing is actually taught, the authors suggest using a set of tools they developed. The first tool is a teacher writing bingo card. A bingo card tool helps organize information and promotes professional conversations that improve teacher capacity. [More] Descriptors: Writing (Composition), Writing Instruction, Academic Standards, State Standards
(2013). Rhetorical Reading as a Gateway to Disciplinary Literacy, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) require literacy instruction for
(2013). Cracking Codes & Launching Rockets, Mathematics Teacher. To engage students, many teachers wish to connect the mathematics they are teaching to other branches of mathematics or to real-world applications. The lesson presented in this article, which uses the algebraic skill of finding the equation of a line between two points and the geometric axiom that any two points define a line, does both. A historically significant coding technique relies on algebra skill and the axiom. This lesson integrates the first Standard for Mathematical Practice from the Common Core State Standards (CCSSI 2010) and many of the NCTM Process Standards–namely, Problem Solving, Reasoning and Proof, Communication, and Connections (NCTM 2000). What follows is a description of how the lesson can be presented as well as insight into adaptations that will make it a good fit for any classroom. This historically significant real-life application of a cryptographic coding technique, which incorporates first-year algebra and geometry, makes mathematics come alive in the classroom. [More] Descriptors: Mathematics Instruction, Relevance (Education), Algebra, Mathematics Skills
(2013). Academic Rigor: The Core of the Core, Principal Leadership. Some educators see the Common Core State Standards as reason for stress, most recognize the positive possibilities associated with them and are willing to make the professional commitment to implementing them so that academic rigor for all students will increase. But business leaders, parents, and the authors of the Common Core are not the only ones who recognize the need for college and career readiness; students want to be prepared too. For students to be willing to put forth the effort it will take to learn at the levels designated by the new educational goals, they must have a general understanding of the standards' purpose and the reasons for mastery. Building understanding among students about the Common Core should begin with a general discussion about the purpose and origin of the standards. Students should know that the Common Core is the result of a cooperative effort between government and business to be competitive within an international workforce. [More] Descriptors: Academic Standards, State Standards, Educational Opportunities, Advanced Courses
secondary students across content areas, but they also recommend that this instruction account for the discipline-specific nature of academic texts. Since English language arts (ELA) teachers and literacy specialists are also responsible for teaching students to read across the curriculum, they need reading strategies that are appropriate in any discipline while simultaneously accommodating the unique practices of individual disciplines. One such strategy–the focus of this article–is rhetorical reading, a metacognitive practice that characterizes the reading of disciplinary experts across the curriculum. Rhetorical reading helps students meet the reading standards in the CCSS and paves the way for students to develop disciplinary literacy in all content areas. This article argues that ELA teachers can help foster disciplinary literacy by teaching students rhetorical reading practices. [More] Descriptors: Content Area Reading, Metacognition, Intellectual Disciplines, Literacy
(2013). Using the Text Structures of Information Books to Teach Writing in the Primary Grades, Early Childhood Education Journal. Teaching children in the primary grades the text structures and features used by authors of information text has been shown to improve comprehension of information texts and provide the scaffolding and support these children need in order to write their own information texts. As teachers implement the "English Language Arts Common Core State Standards" (CCSS), they will need support and training on how to meet these increased curricular demands. In this article, we describe how children's information books can be used as exemplars of well-structured text models to teach young students how to write selected discourse patterns required in the CCSS. As children in the primary grades learn to recognize and use well-structured example information texts as models for their own writing, they will be better prepared to deal with less well-structured, more complex text examples in their reading and writing in the years to come. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Reading Comprehension, Academic Standards, Text Structure