This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices. Some of the authors featured on this page include Zafer Unal, James King, Francis Fennell, Aslihan Unal, Danielle Farrie, Mary Kay Stein, Monete Johnson, Laura Billings, Stephanie Romano, and Jennifer O'Day.
(2015). Still Learning from the Past: Drawing on California's CLAS Experience to Inform Assessment of the Common Core. Policy and Practice Brief, California Collaborative on District Reform. The Common Core State Standards represent an exciting step forward for California, and for the nation as a whole, in supporting instruction that can better prepare students for college and career success. Concurrent with the transition to the new standards, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), of which California is a governing member, is introducing a new, large-scale assessment system in 2015 that aligns with the Common Core. The SBAC assessments aim to capture student learning in a deeper and more authentic way than the state's previous assessment system–the California Standards Test (CST). This is not the first time California has transitioned to a new system of academic standards, instruction, and assessment. In particular, potential parallels exist between the SBAC assessments and the short-lived California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) of the early 1990s. As educators embrace the challenges associated with assessment of the Common Core, it is instructive to learn from the CLAS experience, both to build on its successes and to avoid the mistakes that led to its demise. In September 2012, the California Collaborative on District Reform released a brief that drew connections between assessment efforts tied to the Common Core and the CLAS. Reflecting on both the successes and failures of the CLAS, "Learning From the Past" identified four key lessons that should inform current activities related to Common Core implementation and assessment. The standards and assessments landscape has evolved dramatically since the 2012 brief was published, and education leaders have taken steps to avert some of the problems that undermined the CLAS. Nevertheless, key challenges remain. The goal of this brief is to chart the progress that has been made since the original brief was released in 2012, while also highlighting areas that remain in need of attention as the state continues to develop and implement student assessment systems around the Common Core. Doing so emphasizes the importance of assessment not solely as an external accountability tool, but as an essential component of implementing the Common Core. As the first administration of the SBAC assessments begins in spring 2015, the brief will be most effective if read as a set of considerations for improving the ways in which educators at all levels can respond to evidence of, and develop better approaches to, improving student learning. [Additional funding for the development of this brief was provided by the California Education Policy Fund, and the Silver Giving Foundation.] [More] Descriptors: Academic Standards, State Standards, Measurement, Educational Assessment
(2011). Roadmap for Next-Generation State Accountability Systems. Second Edition. This Roadmap, developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) Next-Generation State Accountability Taskforce, presents a vision for next-generation accountability systems to support college and career readiness for all students. It is written by and for states, building on the leadership toward college and career readiness. This Roadmap has two core purposes: (1) To serve as a statement of state leadership in developing more robust and meaningful educational accountability systems; and (2) To provide a guide for state action in developing and implementing next-generation accountability systems. States recognize accountability as a core strategy designed to achieve educational goals, particularly student achievement outcomes. As states implement college- and career-ready standards and complementary assessment systems through the Common Core state standards and assessment consortia or otherwise, it is critical to consider the accountability implications of these policy shifts and to leverage state accountability systems to support the end goal of college and career readiness for all students. Individual sections contain resources. [More] Descriptors: Academic Achievement, State Standards, Accountability, Leadership
(2015). Transnational Children Orchestrating Competing Voices in Multimodal, Digital Autobiographies, Teachers College Record. Background/Context: Prior research on multimodal, digital composition has highlighted the need for educators to bring such practices into classrooms, yet little research has been done to show what kinds of products children create and what those products can tell us as researchers about how children articulate their life experiences. We draw on recent theorizations of transnationalism in relation to immigrant children's school experiences, and Bakhtinian perspectives on language and ideology, to frame our analysis of the identity work that transnational and immigrant children undertook in the multimodal, digital composition projects we analyze. Purpose/Objective: We analyzed 18 digital videos made by transnational children aged 8-10, asking what the key features of their narratives told us about what they found important in their lives, what voices were orchestrated in the composition of those narratives, and what voices were omitted. We also asked what students' narratives told us about who they were and wanted to be, as immigrants or children of immigrants. Finally, we asked what these features and omissions suggested about perspectives on their immigration experiences and current lives. Research Design: These data come from an ongoing, design-based research project. Qualitative methods were employed, including: interviews with and surveys of children and teachers at various stages of the video production process; collection of children's written work; collection of children's videos; and the writing of field notes and analytic memos. Conclusions/Recommendations: Asking children to write about themselves for teachers, peers, and parents meant asking them to orchestrate multiple voices into potentially contradiction-ridden, yet coherent stories. Our work so far suggests that, at the least, we should expect children to try out new identities, and seek new ways of orchestrating the voices in their lives into a coherent whole. We caution researchers and teachers who work with immigrant youth not to assume that immigration will necessarily be a pivotal moment, or even a central or important moment, to children. We also caution that children may not feel that their school is a safe place to talk about such issues; offering the space is all we can do. The kinds of composition we have described exceed the narrative writing and speaking and listening demands of the Common Core State Standards. Teachers should be aware of the ways multimodal, digital composition can help meet their immigrant students' self-authoring needs and surpass the demands of the new standards. Finally, to connect with others, to become more aware of one's place(s) in an increasingly globalized world, and to orchestrate competing voices–these are the potentials for multimodal, digital composition with immigrant youth to which we continue to aspire. [More] Descriptors: Educational Technology, Technology Uses in Education, Immigrants, Student Projects
(2015). Dialogic and Direct Instruction: Two Distinct Models of Mathematics Instruction and the Debate(s) Surrounding Them, Teachers College Record. Background/Context: Which ideas should be included in the K-12 curriculum, how they are learned, and how they should be taught have been debated for decades in multiple subjects. In this article, we offer mathematics as a case in point of how new standards-related policies may offer an opportunity for reassessment and clarification of such debates. Purpose/Objective: Our goal was to specify instructional models associated with terms such as "reform" and "traditional"–which, in this article, we refer to as "dialogic" and "direct"–in terms of perspectives on what it means to know mathematics, how students learn mathematics, and how mathematics should be taught. Research Design: In the spirit of "adversarial collaboration," we hosted a series of semi-structured discussions among nationally recognized experts who hold opposing points of view on mathematics teaching and/or learning. During those discussions, the recent consensus regarding what students should learn–as represented by the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM)–was taken as a common goal, and additional areas of agreement and disagreement were identified and discussed. The goal was not to reach consensus but to invite representatives of different perspectives to clarify and come to agreement on how they disagree. Findings/Results: We present two instructional models that were specified and refined over the course of those discussions and describe nine key areas that distinguish the two models: (a) the importance and role of talk; (b) the importance and role of group work; (c) the sequencing of mathematical topics; (d) the nature and ordering of mathematical instructional tasks; (e) the nature, timing, source, and purpose of feedback; (f) the emphasis on creativity (i.e., authoring one's own learning; mathematizing subject matter from reality); (g) the purpose of diagnosing student thinking; (h) the introduction and role of definitions; and (i) the nature and role of representations. Additionally, we elaborate a more nuanced description of the ongoing debate, as it pertains to particular sources of difference in perspective. Conclusions/Recommendations: With this article, we hope to advance ongoing debates in two ways: (a) discrediting false assumptions and oversimplified conceptions of the "other side's" arguments (which can obscure both the real differences and real similarities between different models of instruction), and (b) framing the debates in a manner that allows for more thoughtful empirical investigation oriented to understanding learning in the discipline. [More] Descriptors: Direct Instruction, Mathematics Instruction, Teaching Methods, Elementary Secondary Education
(2016). Investigating and Comparing the Impact of Two Strategies (Lesson Design with MS Word and Online Tool) Used for Improving Inservice Teachers' Knowledge, Skills, and Practices on Common Core State Standards (CCSS), Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching. The CCSS is a set of standards released by the National Governors Association in 2010 and was adopted by 43 states (Common Core, 2015). The standards describe what students should know and be able to do in each subject in each grade. They are designed to be academically rigorous, while attainable for students and practical for teachers to teach. The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the impact of two strategies (Lesson Design with MS Word & OnlineTool) used for improving inservice teachers' knowledge, skills and practices on CCSS. This study was implemented with master's degree students (teachers) who enrolled in two graduate level courses in a southeastern university. All of the students who participated in the study were included as data source. The results of the study are beneficial to all teachers, districts, teacher education programs and preservice teachers. The study shows positive results that the course module, the activity and the online tool are effective [More] Descriptors: Lesson Plans, Educational Strategies, Courseware, Inservice Teacher Education
(2011). Gates, Pearson Partner on Common Core, Education Week. As states and school districts grapple with how to teach the skills outlined in the new common standards, two foundations have announced a partnership aimed at crafting complete, online curricula for those standards in mathematics and English/language arts that span nearly every year of a child's precollegiate education. The announcement last month by the Pearson Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation marks yet another entry into the increasingly crowded marketplace of curriculum creation sparked by the common standards. All but six states have adopted the learning guidelines issued last year by the Common Core State Standards Initiative. The move also represents a mix of philanthropic and business interests that is drawing attention from some educators and experts in education philanthropy. Officials from the Gates and the Pearson foundations say the project will create 24 courses: 11 in math, for grades K-10; and 13 in English/language arts, for grades K-12. Four of those courses will be available for free online through the Gates Foundation. The full 24-course system, with accompanying tools including assessments and professional development for teachers, will be available for purchase, likely through Pearson, the international media company that operates the New York City-based Pearson Foundation. Each course will serve as a 150-day curriculum and will harness technological advances such as social networking, animation, and gaming to better engage and motivate students. [More] Descriptors: Elementary Secondary Education, Language Arts, State Standards, Private Financial Support
(2012). The 2012 Brown Center Report on American Education: How Well Are American Students Learning? With Sections on Predicting the Effect of the Common Core State Standards, Achievement Gaps on the Two NAEP Tests, and Misinterpreting International Test Scores. Volume III, Number 1, Brookings Institution. This edition of the Brown Center Report on American Education marks the first issue of volume three–and eleventh issue over all. The first installment was published in 2000, just as the Presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and Al Gore were winding down. Education was an important issue in that campaign. It has not been thus far in the current campaign for the Republican nomination (as of February 2012). And it is unlikely to be a prominent issue in the fall general election. Despite that, the three studies in this Brown Center Report investigate questions that the victor in the 2012 campaign, and the team assembled to lead the U.S. Department of Education, will face in the years ahead. The first section is on the Common Core State Standards, a project that President Obama has backed enthusiastically. Forty-six states and the District of Columbia have signed on to the Common Core; detailed standards have been written in English language arts and mathematics; and assessments are being developed to be ready by the 2014-2015 school year. The first section attempts to predict the effect of the Common Core on student achievement. The second section of the Report investigates achievement gaps on NAEP. The NAEP has two different tests: the Long-Term Trend NAEP, which began in 1969, and the Main NAEP, which began in 1990. The two tests differ in several respects, but they both carry the NAEP label and both are integral components of "The Nation's Report Card." Achievement gaps are the test score differences between groups of students with different socioeconomic (SES) characteristics: for example, racial or ethnic background, family income, or language status. The second section poses the question: Do the two NAEP tests report similar achievement gaps? Researchers and policy makers are well aware that significant test score gaps exist between SES groups. Researchers try to study them, policy makers try to close them. What NAEP has to say about the magnitude of such gaps plays an important role in the policy arena. The analysis presented in section two indicates that the two NAEPs do in fact differ. The third section of the report is on international assessments. Interpretations of international test scores are characterized by three common mistakes. The first occurs when a nation's scores go up or down dramatically and analysts explain the test score change by pointing to a particular policy. The second mistake stems from relying on rankings to gauge a country's academic standing. The third mistake is pointing to a small group of high-performing nations, often called "A+ countries," and recommending, with no additional analysis, that their policies should be adopted. (Contains 10 tables, 1 figure and 53 notes.) [For the previous report, "The 2010 Brown Center Report on American Education: How Well Are American Students Learning? With Sections on International Tests, Who's Winning the Real Race to the Top, and NAEP and the Common Core State Standards. Volume II, Number 5," see ED515886.] [More] Descriptors: Academic Standards, State Standards, Educational Improvement, Academic Achievement
(2011). Testing What Has Been Taught: Helpful, High-Quality Assessments Start with a Strong Curriculum, American Educator. In recent years, standardized, large-scale tests of student achievement have been given a central role in federal, state, and local efforts to improve K-12 education. Despite the widespread enthusiasm for assessment-based reforms, many of the current and proposed uses of large-scale assessments are based on unverified assumptions about the extent to which they will actually lead to improved teaching and learning, and insufficient attention has been paid to the characteristics of assessment programs that are likely to promote desired outcomes. In light of the recently developed Common Core State Standards and the ongoing work to develop assessments aligned to those standards, now is a good time to pause and consider the state and federal assessment policies. If one is to actually improve schools, researchers and policymakers must address a few essential questions: How many purposes can one assessment serve? Can assessments meaningfully be aligned to standards, or is something more detailed, like a curriculum, necessary to guide both teachers and assessment developers? What would the key features of an assessment system designed to increase student learning and improve instruction be? While current assessment knowledge is not sufficient to fully answer these questions, in this article the author offers an overview of what is known and several suggestions for improving one's approach to assessment. [More] Descriptors: Evaluation, Elementary Secondary Education, State Standards, Formative Evaluation
(2015). Newark Public Schools: Budget Impacts of Underfunding and Rapid Charter Growth, Education Law Center. The budget of the State-operated Newark Public Schools (NPS) is now in its fourth year of crisis. The district is currently struggling to close a $13 million budget hole almost halfway into the school year. Most importantly, the ongoing budget crisis has eroded essential resources in district schools, depriving students of the opportunity for a thorough and efficient education. This report analyzes the impact of the NPS budget crisis on per pupil spending and staff levels in district schools. The authors find that the combined stress of chronic underfunding and rapid charter expansion has significantly lowered spending and reduced staff and programs in district schools. The drastic underfunding of NPS under the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA), combined with an increase in payments to charter schools, has left NPS with no alternative but to reduce spending on schools and students, resulting in significant cuts in teachers, support staff, special education, programs for English Language learners and other essential programs and services. It is clear that the NPS budget crisis is worsening–and will continue to worsen in coming years–depriving NPS students of the opportunity to achieve the Common Core State Standards (CCCS), the benchmark for a thorough and efficient education. Urgent action by the Commissioner, the New Jersey Department of Education (DOE), and the State District Superintendent is required to address this crisis. In order to stabilize the budget for the next few years and enable NPS to restore resources necessary for a thorough and efficient education, the following recommendations are presented: (1) Restore state formula aid to move NPS to full SFRA funding; (2) Increase the city of Newark's local contribution, utilizing waivers of the 2% property tax cap where appropriate; (3) Temporarily halt the expansion of enrollment in existing Newark charter schools, pending a thorough analysis by the Commissioner and the DOE of the impact of further expansion on the funding and resources available in district schools, as mandated by law and court rulings; (4) Reduce district payments to charter schools in 2016-17, by requiring Newark charter schools to apply any fund balance in excess of 2% to the charter's per pupil payment amount under the charter law; and (5) End the authorization of additional payments to charter schools from the NPS budget in excess of the per pupil amounts under the charter law. "Full-time Equivalent Staff by Job Code" is appended. [More] Descriptors: Public Schools, Urban Schools, Educational Finance, Financial Support
(2011). Strategies for Teaching Fractions: Using Error Analysis for Intervention and Assessment, Corwin. Many students struggle with fractions and must understand them before learning higher-level math. Veteran educator David B. Spangler provides research-based tools that are aligned with NCTM and Common Core State Standards. He outlines powerful diagnostic methods for analyzing student work and providing timely, specific, and meaningful interventions within an RTI framework. The strategies are easily tailored to each student's individual needs, decrease the probability of repeated errors, and result in improved student performance. Practical materials include: (1) Reproducibles for diagnostic tests; (2) Practice pages for exercises keyed to the diagnostic tests and error patterns; (3) Pages for practicing alternative algorithms and estimation; (4) Teacher resources for hands-on activities, game sheets and pieces, and more; and (5) Worksheets, answer keys, and online resources. Each main unit, along with the sections on academic research and "Big Ideas," concludes with a set of teacher reflection questions for use in a professional development setting. Get ready, get set, and help your students tackle fractions with confidence! Following a preface, the book is divided into the following units: (1) Fraction Concepts; (2) Addition/Subtraction of Fractions and Mixed Numbers; and (3) Multiplication/Division of Fractions and Mixed Numbers. Also included are additional resources, and technology resources online. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Error Patterns, Diagnostic Tests, Probability
(2011). Revision Strategies for Adolescent Writers: Moving Students in the Write Direction, Corwin. For many secondary students, writing effectively is the most elusive of the critical literacy skills needed for college and career readiness. And for many teachers, revision is the most difficult part of the writing process to tackle. How can adolescent writers be guided to revisit their work, to identify the weaknesses in their writing drafts, and revise–making their pieces stronger and more effective? The Common Core State Standards advocate strengthening students' writing through revision–a skill different from either drafting or editing–and using technology for creating and collaborating with others. This instructional guide, with its more than 30 flexible, classroom-tested strategies, demonstrates these practices and more: (1) Frontloading (planning, rehearsing, and conversing before writing); (2) Peer conferencing as part of a writers' workshop; (3) Using technology to write, collaborate, and revise in and out of the classroom; and (4) Modeling effective revision techniques as writers and teachers of writing. Teachers will turn again and again to this easy-to-use resource, with its clear explanations of strategies correlated to the 6 Traits of Effective Writing, examples of "before-and-after" student work, and thoughtful quotes from published writers about their own writing and revision processes. These authors and experienced teachers of writing have provided a handbook that can be used immediately to scaffold students' revision and help them become more fluent, confident, and independent writers. An index is included. [Foreword by Vickie Spandel.] [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Writing Processes, Writing Workshops, Literacy
(2011). Serious Play with Dynamic Plane Transformations, New England Mathematics Journal. Transformations are a central organizing idea in geometry. They are included in most geometry curricula and are likely to appear with even greater emphasis in the future, given the central role they play in the "Common Core State Standards" for K-12 mathematics. One of the attractions of geometry is the ability to draw and construct the geometrical figures that one is studying. This opens doors to all sorts of measuring and investigating that can lead to understanding. But transformations are more elusive, since they cannot really be pictured in the same unambiguous way. It is true that visual clues made of arrows and other indicators can help one visualize a transformation. And it is also possible to get hands-on access to some properties of transformations with paper folding or mirrors. But nonetheless, key theorems and properties of transformations can be challenging to understand because of their abstraction and the difficulty of gaining intuition about them. Dynamic geometry software is one tool that provides a direct way to interact with transformations. In this article, the author suggests some "serious play" with transformations that may open doors to better understanding of difficult concepts. [More] Descriptors: Elementary Secondary Education, State Standards, Geometry, Plane Geometry
(2011). A Literacy Education for Our Times, English Journal. The authors of the new Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy believe that college and career-ready students who meet the standards in that document exhibit a number of "capacities of the literate individual." One of these is the capacity "to understand other perspectives and cultures" through reading classic and contemporary literature. Such students "actively seek to understand other perspectives and cultures through reading and writing, and they are able to communicate effectively with people from varied backgrounds." English teachers have always tried to nurture the deep understanding called for in this portrait of literate readers. Their professional standards call for them to promote this depth and breadth through critical reading. Most people would agree that a good literacy education includes advanced skills in "reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and visually representing" (NCTE and IRA 1). But many have different ideas on the purpose of a good literacy education. In this article, the author reflects on the ethical dimensions of teaching English in the context of the Common Core Standards. The author focuses on three forms of knowledge that may become part of a framework for a literacy education that is ripe for "renewal": (1) "mindfulness"; (2) "unity"; and (3) "compassion." They not only have content (what they mean) but also skills (how they are practiced), and they are natural ways of learning and being. [More] Descriptors: Literacy, Altruism, Critical Reading, State Standards
(2011). Using Seminars to Teach the Common Core's Speaking and Listening Standards, Eye on Education. As educators, the authors know the importance of teaching reading and writing, but they often overlook speaking and listening skills. They believe that if they have class discussions on a regular basis, students are "naturally" learning to speak and to listen. However, that is not the case. On the contrary, speaking and listening skills are ones that must be explicitly taught–now, more than ever, as educators prepare students for 21st century careers. The jobs of the future will require collaboration, discussion, and problem-solving as never before. The Common Core State Standards indicate the necessity of teaching speaking and listening. So how do educators "teach" speaking and listening? The authors recommend using a seminar approach in K-12 classrooms. In particular, they suggest implementing Paideia Seminars–collaborative, intellectual dialogues facilitated with open-ended questions about a text. The literacy cycle of the Seminar includes five steps: pre-seminar reading, preparation for speaking and listening, the dialogue "per se," a post-seminar reflection on speaking and listening, and a post-seminar writing assignment. The goal of practicing reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills together is to become more clear, coherent, and sophisticated in our thinking and to contribute to the quality of our lives (Roberts and Billings, 2011). [More] Descriptors: Seminars, State Standards, Academic Standards, Speech Skills
(2011). Achieving Fluency: Special Education and Mathematics, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. "Achieving Fluency" presents the understandings that all teachers need to play a role in the education of students who struggle: those with disabilities and those who simply lack essential foundational knowledge. This book serves teachers and supervisors by sharing increasingly intensive instructional interventions for struggling students on essential topics aligned with NCTM's Curriculum Focal Points, the new Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, and the practices and processes that overlap the content. These approaches are useful for both overcoming ineffective approaches and implementing preventive approaches. Contents inlcude: Foreword (Karen Karp); (1) All Means All (Francis Fennell); (2) Learning: A Framework (Arthur J. Baroody); (3). Instruction: Yesterday I Learned to Add; Today I Forgot (Jeffrey Shih, William R. Speer, and Beatrice C. Babbitt); (4) Assessment (Herbert P. Ginsburg and Amy Olt Dolan); (5) Number and Operations: Organizing Your Curriculum to Develop Computational Fluency (Edward C. Rathmell and Anthony J. Gabriele); (6) Algebra (John K. Lannin and Delinda van Garderen); (7) Geometry (Julie Sarama, Douglas H. Clements, Rene S. Parmar, and Rene Garrison); (8) Measurement (Rene S. Parmar, Rene Garrison, Douglas H. Clements, and Julie Sarama); and (9) Data Analysis and Probability (Cynthia W. Langrall and Edward S. Mooney). [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Disabilities, Special Education, Mathematics Instruction