Assessments and the Common Core

1. Assessments and the Common Core LaSalle County Teacher Institute Day Oct. 11, 2013

2. Ask yourself… • Are we really preparing our students to enter the work force someday?

3. “I Choose C” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY2mRM4i6tY&noredirect=1

4. How is Common Core Different? • The Common Core...provides a clear and rigorous set of learning targets aimed toward what students must learn.  • The CC standards are designed to help students to develop deep understanding of topics with connections to authentic, real world scenarios.  • The standards aim to engage students in building knowledge and skills needed for success in college and careers.

6. But it’s NOT just for math and ELA teachers!!! • Literacy is taught in ALL subjects! • Science and Technical subjects: http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RST/6-8 • History: http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RH/6-8 • Writing (this should be happening in EVERY class): http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/WHST/6-8

7. How Do I Make the Shift? • Using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles

8. Getting Started… • Think Backwards in Planning Your Lessons • Backwards Design

10. Identify Desired Results

11. Use an Essential Question • This is a kid‐friendly question that represents the BIG IDEA. It is sufficiently broad to allow students to demonstrate their understanding of the material in its entirety. • A question is essential when it:  • causes genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content; • provokes deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions; • requires students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas, and justify their answers; • stimulates vital, on-going rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior lessons; • sparks meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences; • naturally recurs, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and subjects. Grant Wiggins (2007). What is an essential question?. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.authenticeducation.org/ae_bigideas/article.lasso?artid=53. [Last Accessed Sept 15 2013].

12. Examples of Essential Questions • How well can fiction reveal truth? • Why did that particular species/culture/person thrive and that other one barely survive or die?  • Is there really a difference between a cultural generalization and a stereotype? 

13. Determine Acceptable Evidence

14. How Do I Assess So Many Different Types of Evidence? • Create one rubric that focuses on the CONTENT or standards and not on the project itself.

15. Planning for Learning and Instruction

16. Let’s Practice • In your group, determine identified results and acceptable evidence for the essential question: Is it better to buy or lease a car?

17. Discussion • What pieces of evidence were you able to come up with?

18. Let’s Dive in Deeper! • In your group, create an essential question on a unit that you already teach. • Does the question meet the essential question criteria? • should not be able to be answered in a sentence/do not have one "correct" answer • should create a deep and "enduring understanding“ • are multilayered questions • point to the "key inquiries and the core ideas of a discipline“ • are cross-curricular • result in other questions

19. Now, Identify the Desired Results of that Question • What standards are you going to meet? • What content do you want the students to retain?

20. Determine Acceptable Evidence • What types of assignments prove your students know the content? • List many types of assessments that will fulfill the desired results. • What does the rubric look like?

21. Plan Instruction

22. Rubric • Rubistar is a good place to start!

23. Share and Share Alike! • Present your group’s lesson to the entire group. • Share it with the ROE so that we can make it available to other teachers in our area and so that you have access to others’ lessons too!