Going Beyond Awareness: A Strategy for Engaging Educators

1. Going Beyond Awareness: A Strategy for Engaging Educators

2. Going Beyond Awareness: A Strategy for Engaging Educators Objectives • By the end of this morning’s state team time, we want you: • To know about and gain familiarity with the Educator Engagement Planning Tool to support • Broad Awareness • Deep and Meaningful Engagement • To be familiar with how the Content Frameworks and Educator Leader Cadres support educator engagement

3. Stages of Educator Engagement • Stage 1: awareness and understanding for all stakeholders • Broad communication of basic information about the CCSS • Distributed through multiple venues to reach all stakeholders (students, teachers, principles, parents, higher education faculty, the public, etc.) • Stage 2: deep and meaningful engagement of teams of educators • Involving educators in the development and delivery of CCSS-aligned instructional materials • Results in professional learning opportunities for educators delivered by educators

4. Widespread Understanding and Awareness • Determine what level of understanding already exists • Catalog awareness activities (those initiated by the state and by external organizations) • Identify existing or potential partners for spreading awareness • Examples: unions, business groups, local foundations, advocacy organizations • Regularly review your state communication plan to ensure it answers: • Why states are changing to the new standards • What your state’s goals are in terms of mastering the CCSS • How the CCSS differ from current state standards • What the CCSS mean for stakeholders (students, teachers, principals, parents, higher education faculty, the public, etc.)

5. Widespread Understanding and Awareness • Focus on communication activities that reach stakeholders in multiple ways, such as: • Building an educator distribution list and using it to distribute ongoing updates • Publishing a CCSS newsletter posted on the SEA website • Identifying CCSS ambassadors who can go into schools to inform educators • Holding regional information sessions or including CCSS information in already planned meetings of educators • Engaging media in multiple ways, including holding regular media briefings • All activities in each state’s communications plan should be linked directly to providing greater CCSS awareness for the classroom teachers

6. Widespread Understanding and Awareness

7. Widespread Understanding and Awareness • What communications and awareness activities have been particularly successful in your state? • How do you know that they were successful? • What other organizations or agencies have you partnered with to spread the word about the CCSS?

8. Widespread Awareness and the Content Frameworks Purpose • Identify the big ideas in the Common Core State Standards for each grade level • Help determine the focus for the various PARCC assessment components • Support the development of the assessment blueprints Process • Two state reviews, one public review. In the second state review, educators intentionally engaged directly at state and national level to increase awareness and to increase

9. Widespread Awareness and the Content Frameworks Results • Hundreds of k-12 teachers participating in review of second draft across PARCC • Of the 900 surveys completed during the public review, 60% came from k-12 educators

10. Deep Engagement and Meaningful Collaboration: Content Frameworks One possibility… • Deeper understanding of the standards through collaborative study at school, district, or state level • In ELA/Literacy and Mathematics, the PARCC Model Content Frameworks provide much more detail about the standards themselves, how they are applied, and how they are interpreted • This detail allows educators to begin to more firmly grasp the depth of meaning found in the standards

11. Grade 6 Example: Glossary

12. Grade 3 Example

13. Deep Engagement and Meaningful Collaboration: Content Frameworks And another… • Collaborative analysis of instructional materials alignment, which can lead to additional tool creation and adapted materials • ELA/Literacy: Close Reading of Texts • Mathematics: Focus and Coherence

14. Deep Engagement and Meaningful Collaboration: Content Frameworks

15. Deep Engagement and Meaningful Collaboration: Content Frameworks

16. Deep Engagement and Meaningful Collaboration Goal is to collaborate with educators to align everyday teaching practice with the depth and skills of the CCSS • Communicate that most schools will have to make changes to instructional practice based on the CCSS • Move beyond informational sessions into materials developments • Build trust by identifying and training educator leaders who can lead the development of CCSS-aligned materials

17. Deep Engagement and Meaningful Collaboration Examples of ways to engage educators in the development of CCSS-aligned materials include: • Identifying a corps of educators who can lead the development of CCSS-aligned materials • Regularly convening those teams of educators • Recruiting educators to serve on a peer review committee • Setting up systems to allow educators to provide feedback on draft resources • Sharing model lesson plans and other teacher-developed resources Case study: PARCC’s Educator Leader Cadres

18. Deep Engagement and Meaningful Collaboration: Educator Leader Cadres • Primary goal is to develop a cadre of educators in each state to be ambassadors for the CCSS and PARCC assessment implementation efforts • Achieved through a two-part approach • Deep analysis of the CCSS and PARCC leading to the development of additional instructional tools in ELA/Literacy and Mathematics • Development of and delivery on coaching plans to develop in-state and cross-state communities of practice focused on implementation throughout the state, leveraging and building on existing professional development networks and the state’s delivery plan • Convenings to occur 2012-2015, including face-to-face and on-line meetings

19. Deep Engagement and Meaningful Collaboration: Educator Leader Cadres • Cadre Members will support other teachers on building the tools they need (instructional, communications, etc…) • They will meet face-to-face and also using on-line platforms to broaden the reach • Cadre team members will be leaders in their respective areas and active participants in professional development networks and will include: • Teachers: elementary; secondary ELA, mathematics, science, and social studies; ELL; special education. • Administrators: building principals at the elementary and secondary levels; district leaders in curriculum and professional development. • Higher Education (colleges of education, mathematics, English) • State education agency representatives in assessment, content and professional development experts

20. Deep Engagement and Meaningful Collaboration

21. Deep Engagement and Meaningful Collaboration What is the biggest challenge to implementing CCSS-aligned materials in the classroom? Are there networks of educators that already exist in your state that you could use to build teams of educators to develop materials? How can each state ensure curriculum materials and resources are aligned and of high-quality? What educator engagement strategies have been successful in your state (around CCSS or other reforms)?