The Common Core Standards
1. How the Common Core Standards are different from the former standardize tests?
The Common Core Standards are clearly stated and describe what students should learn in the classroom from kinder to grade 12, and teachers can measure if the students are acquiring the necessary material for a specific level. The Common Core Standards is the guide that help teachers to design lessons plans addressing content according to the grade level. The main purpose of the standards is to challenge students to develop analytical skills, critical thinking, and solve real world problems. These skills will take students to successfully compete in the labor force and to a better performance in society.
Instead, former standardized tests are designed in a consistent manner. This means, one single test is designed for all students, in the same way. Therefore, material thought in school should be correlated with these standardized tests. If the students acquire the skills designed by the Common Core Standards, they will be capable to utilize reasoning, logic, and rationality to complete a standardized test in an effective way.
2. What skills for thinking and tools for learning does the Common Core provide for students in your content area?
The main skills for thinking the Common Core Standards
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Instead, these tools are embedded in today’s curriculum throughout technology. Computers, audio, video, smart boards, Chromebooks, etc., are available in the classrooms as part of the instruction. Students today, use technology devices as never before in a very thoughtful way to emphasize their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language use. The countless and amazing educational technological resources assist World Language educators to provide an outstanding instruction, for students to better connect with different cultural realities and accomplish their communication
Sawchuk, S. (2012). Many Teachers Not Ready for the Common Core. Education Digest, 16-22. http://proxy.ashland.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eft&AN=82981829&site=ehost-live Beginning this research I stumbled on this article which discusses the successful implementation of the Common Core Standards.
Common core standards should be taught in the dominant way to solve the problem first, and when the majority of the students understand the concept, other complex ways to solve the problem can be taught from a variety of choices to choose from. This process is time consuming, but it is a guaranteed way to increase the child’s brain level of understanding, since they are at an age that is still under developed and have trouble solving challenging
Common Core Mathematic Standards have been under evaluation because of a debate between college professors, some who feel the standards are not substantial enough to prepare students for the college degree. It is a teacher’s responsibility to prepare their students for the next level. Even many supporters believe that the Common Core State Standards have many flaws and should be evaluated. With that being stated, the board that constructed the standards made mention that the cause for these flaws is because they focused so much on the K-8 standards that they ran out of time. Because of this short time, they ended up having to rush to work sure the K-8 plus or High School Standards were completed, meaning they had less time to truly think them through.
The achievement gap is the difference in education between schools due to financial and cultural backgrounds (“Educational Standards”). With common standards, all students will be taught the same material during the school year, so none of the low income schools will fall behind due to lack of resources or problems of the sort. Along with having balanced educations between schools, supporters of Common Core also contend that imposing these standards help experts define which approaches are the most proficient in teaching students, because there would be certain statistics to prove which methods work best (“Educational Standards”). Not only will students be getting an equal education to other schools, but also the best education possible. Opponents might say that the achievement gap will get wider when introduced to standards, because it has been getting increasingly bigger in the past (Koh, Tsin Yen).
It was discovered that in education there were certain areas that were universal and common among learning. The two main subjects of concern were English language arts and mathematics. Common core is the new curriculum implemented now in school systems to develop learning. Common Core Standards are a clear set of shared goals and expectations for the knowledge and skills students need in English language arts and mathematics at each grade level so they can be prepared to succeed in college, career, and life. Although, Common Core seems to be here to stay this article addresses concerns in reference to content, instruction, and assessment.
Going Against the Standard According to Tim Walker, “Only 14% of parents say standardized testing is important in measuring school effectiveness” (Walker). A standardized test is a test that is given in a consistent or “standard” manner. Standardized tests are designed to have consistent questions, administration procedures, and scoring procedures. When a standardized test is administered, it is done so according to certain rules and specifications so that testing conditions are the same for all test takers. They often provide some type of “standard score” which can help interpret how far a child score ranges from the average student (Johnson).
Another major asset of implementing CCSS is that it may allow educators, across the nation to share different curriculum ideas, strategic learning methods, and developmental costs. Common Core has refined and shaped a unique bundle of standards to help ensure that students, teachers, and parents are aware and pursue grade-by-grade standards in English language arts/ literacy and
Schools put pressure on students to meet the standards with the consequence that it will later on affect their college and their career. Thus comes along standardized testing, (SAT or ACT) in which these exams force
2. For General Education Competencies what I demonstrated in my artifact is using Critical Thinking: Learners will demonstrate the ability to draw conclusions based
School’s are using standardized testing for the wrong reason. “A standardized test is any examination that’s administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner. There are two major kinds of standardized tests: aptitude tests and achievement tests” (Popham, 1999). The most common examples of aptitude tests are the SAT and the
Critical thinking is relevant in a few different aspects of life. For example, critical thinking can be applied to school and learning. There are people who support using different aspects of critical thinking in students curriculum. Laura Hummell said, "Critical thinking skill development is crucial in elementary schools. Students who are allowed to explore, empathize, question, hypothesize, conceptualize, experiment, and evaluate throughout their own learning become productive community members" (Hummell 5).
In the article, the author addresses the steps needed to successfully implement the taxonomy thinking skills, including: Teachers should be familiar with the thinking skills, teachers should identify student needs, and teachers should choose the most relevant skills according to content, curriculum, and developmental levels. Burns addresses the four major thinking skills categories, Analytical Reasoning Skills, Critical Thinking
STAR was “a mile wide and an inch deep”. Common Core is “a meter wide, and a kilometer deep”. According to Dr. Terrance Moore, Common Core confuses “education” with “job training”.(1) Common Core says that uniform standards increase test scores. In certain cases, such as Finland and Singapore, that is true.
And what state-level problem do they help solve? (pages 11 & 13) Create more effective ways to address the nation’s pressing education issues. To date, more than 40 states have adopted the Common Core state standards, meaning that the majority of students will be expected to meet these higher expectations. The standards are internationally benchmarked, and many believe that they will help improve national competitiveness.
Standardized tests are tests designed to evaluate a student’s performance and as well as the teacher’s performance where these tests contain the same set or common questions which are taken by the students annually in the same way (The Johnson Center, n.d.). However, these tests may also vary depending on which of the student’s or school’s ability would they like to evaluate. Standardized tests are of different forms. There are tests intended to evaluate a student’s learning and academic progress¬—if a student was able to learn what he/she was supposed to learn¬—over a period of time.