CRT Instructional Materials

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

The Nevada Department of Education released instructional materials matched to the 2012-2013 state tests. You can access them here.

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What Principals Need to Successfully Implement CCSS

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

Mel Riddile, in a piece for the National Association of Secondary School Principals, describes the skills school leaders will need in order to be successfully implement the CCSS. Riddile highlights a number of ideas including “Students will be expected to closely read much more complex text and to write argumentative essays citing evidence gleaned from multiple sources.” You can review all of Riddile’s tips here.

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Carol Jago Weekend Tweets

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

Past president of the National Council of Teachers of English Carol Jago shares her thoughts on reading and the Common Core through Tweets this weekend. You can follow Jago on Twitter by clicking here.

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“How Can I Teach with Books that are Two Years above Student Reading Levels?”

Posted on February 2, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

Dr. Timothy Shanahan addresses a question many of us have been asking as we work with CC Standard 10 and the importance of allowing all students to work with grade level complex text. That is, “How can I teach with books that are two years above student reading levels?” You can find the answer here.

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School Leaders: How to Successfully Implement the CCSS

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

Sue Beers outlines four strategies for successfully implementing the Common Core State Standards in a piece for ASCD. She highlights the need for teachers to have “time to learn, plan and collaborate as they build new systems of instruction and redesign learning opportunities that are consistent with the standards.” Allowing teachers the requisite time to work with the standards is an important feature of the district’s 3 Year K-6 ELA Plan and Beers’ helps illustrate this point.

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BAP at 11,000 users

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

Edweek reports that the Basal Alignment Project is now at 11,000 users and you can read how this became the largest Edmodo community here. The Council of Great City Schools also weighs in with a press release in which Council Executive Director Michael Casserly notes, “The ability for educators across the country to collaborate on tools and share materials is one of the most exciting outcomes of Common Core State Standards adoption.”

Washoe has created it’s own 6th grade BAP which you can access by using these directions.

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Social Emotional Learning and the CCSS Day 2

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

Day Two of the Social Emotional Learning and Core Task Project experiment concluded with participants reviewing the anchor standards for SEL and reading an article on grit by Thomas Hoerr. K-6 teachers studied several close reading exemplars before building a plan for implementing the close reading strategy with specific attention to SEL outcomes.

You can review what was shared by downloading the PowerPoint and reading the Hoerr article.

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Martinez’s State of Education Address

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

This evening, Superintendent Pedro Martinez gave his State of Education Address. During the speech, he played a snippet of video of College Board President David Coleman describing the CCSS and the instructional shifts. You can access the entire video by clicking here. Coleman begins speaking at minute 18:10.

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The CCSS and Evidenced-Centered Design

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

If you are trying to understand how SBAC and PARCC will be assessing students in 2014-2015, the following webinar by Alliance for Excellent Education, provides a number of answers. Joan Herman, at the University of California, Los Angeles, explains Evidenced-Centered Design (ECD) and how it is guiding the assessment framework for the coming tests. Of note, Herman’s ability to take pretty dense content and make it manageable enables viewers to have a stronger understanding of ECD and the implications for instruction. You can access the presentation slides here and the video here.

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“Simplifying” Complex Text

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Aaron Grossman

How do you identify complex texts? And how do you design tasks that take into account text complexity? These two questions are featured in this video from Sarah Brown Wessling. The video is a nice place to start for educators who are beginning their initial work with this outcome (shift 3) and pausing at minute 4:43, in which Wessling shares, “Giving students text complexity means giving them a variety of texts to create opportunities to transfer their learning” is worth reviewing.

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