Aligning Policies to Support

Common Core Standards

Implementation in ELA

Jeff Williams

• K-12 Literacy Teacher Leader & Reading Recovery Teacher in Solon, Ohio

• NCTE Executive Committee member• NCTE Elementary Section Assistant Chair• Government Relations Chair of EC• Chair of NCTE Common Core Review in 2010• Author and Literacy Consultant

Session Objectives:

• Collaborative work of NCTE to support ELA teachers

• Policies to enhance teacher implementation• Teacher education/P-12 and Higher Ed

Collaboration• Questions and Answers

Efforts to Support Teachers

• New–Common Core Webinars –Common Core Book Series

• On-going–NCTE Website–Connected Community–Pathways

Grades K-2 ConferenceApril 14: 4:00 pm April 21: 5:30 pm April 28: 5:30 pm

Grades 3-5 ConferenceApril 12: 5:30 pm April 20: 5:30 pm April 26: 3:30 pm

Grades K-12Session One

Grades 6-8 ConferenceApril 14: 5:30 pm April 19 6:30 pm April 26 5:30 pm

Grades 9-12 ConferenceApril 12: 3:30 pmApril 20: 3:30 pmApril 28: 3:30 pm

All times listed are Eastern

Observing Contextualizing Building

Session 2

Session 3

Session 4

Book Series

• 4 books in grade level bands• NCTE Principles in action with Common Core

Standards• Emphasize multiple ways to teach and assess

CCS

Organization of Books

• overview organization of standards• provide narrative vignettes juxtaposing two

teachers from various parts of the country teaching one of the new Common Core concepts

• charting practices• guiding questions for implementation and study

Charting the Practice

Charting the Practice

Individual Reflections

• Katie uses many formative assessment techniques in her teaching of theme, such as turn-and-talk conversations, ABCD cards, and exit slips. Look at your own curriculum for ways in which you use different formative assessments to keep track of students’ progress throughout a unit of study. Incorporate one or two new formative assessment strategies, gathering ideas from these vignettes or from your colleagues.

Teaching Teams

• With a group of colleagues, write down the different types of assessments you use to evaluate student understanding of the concept of theme. Then, combine lists into a “master list” that contains everyone’s assessment strategies. Divide these strategies into “formative” and “summative” assessments. Examine your own assessment strategies against those your colleagues are using and those Katie and Scott used in this chapter. What new formative assessment strategies can you and your colleagues add to your curricula based on the resources your colleagues have contributed?

Policies to Enhance Implementation of Common Core

Thought of the day:

• Research is clear on increasing student achievement:

– Knowledge base of the teacher is the single most influential positive factor on student achievement

– Collaborative learning community that studies issues and problem-solves together is second most influential factor

Success is…

• dependent upon teachers and their abilities to use sound instructional judgments to assess and meet the needs of the students they work with daily.

• not a curriculum or a program.

Use teaching teams as the basic unit for decision making:

• Develop and assess curricula and become more knowledgeable about student learning.

• Apply cross-disciplinary perspectives to curriculum design, assessment, and professional growth.

• Conduct collective inquiry into the learning and teaching environment.

• Connect to parents and the community.

Provide systematic professional development:

• Provide time in the school day for teaching teams to create, plan, and participate in sustained professional development.

• Support professional development opportunities that allow for teacher collaboration within and across grade levels to share and analyze practices that improve achievement.

• Address the unique needs of early-career teachers.

• Include teachers when planning professional development so that it aligns with the distinctive needs of their students.

Support comprehensive state literacy policies that:

• require a sustained investment in literacy learning and instruction from birth through grade 12.

• demonstrate the interdependent and reciprocal relationship of reading and writing.

• create learning environments rich in books, media, technology, and literacy experiences.

• require instruction that is developmentally and contextually appropriate and meaningfully engages students.

P – University Collaboration: Building a Shared Vision for Success

• Involve higher education faculty in state literacy plans. Convene discussions with P-12 and Higher Ed leaders around documents like the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing and CC Standards.

• Consider sharing professional development resources between higher education and Department of Education

• Recommend courses in the pedagogy of and understandings about writing instruction and 21st Century Literacies and assessment literacy

Create a transition plan for accountability

• Place a moratorium on testing required under NCLB guidelines and on AYP sanctions.

• Ensure that accountability measures are developmentally, linguistically, and culturally sensitive to the particular needs of English language learners and students with disabilities.

• Fund professional development for interpreting assessment data, using data to make instructional decisions, and developing formative and performance-based classroom assessments.

• Empower teachers to design and select formative assessments that assist them in making ongoing decisions about student learning and teaching.

Questions and

Answers

NCTE Resources:• Webinars: http://www.ncte.org/virtualconf/commoncore

• Pathways: http://www.ncte.org/pathways

• 21st Century Framework: http://www.ncte.org/positions/21stcenturyliteracy

• Framework for Success in Post-secondary Writing: http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/collwritingframework

• Formative Assessment: http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/CC/0201-sep2010/CC0201PolicyBrief.pdf