Illinois Common Core Standards and PARCC : What It Means for You

1. Illinois Common Core Standards and PARCC : What It Means for You Golden Apple Institute Eastern Illinois University Dr. Joy L. Russell jlrussell@eiu.edu June 23, 2014

2. Golden Apple Scholar Pledge “I promise to try as well as I can to succeed in college, to learn my profession well, and to learn how to teach and inspire children……”

3. Today’s Targets • To reaffirm the things you know about good teaching • To stretch and learn something you can use tomorrow & beyond (Increase your bag of tricks) • Have fun!

4. WELCOME & INTRODUCTIONS

5. SPONGE ACTIVITY

7. Why do we need standards in education?

8. What are the Common Core State Standards? • The CCSSs are National Standards designed to: • Help our students become “college and career ready” • Provide consistency between states in terms of • Content and Cut-scores • Help our students become more globally competitive • Replace (or add to) individual state standards.

10. Common Core State Standards • Fewer, clearer, higher • Internationally benchmarked • 21st Century Skills • Evidence‐based

11. Who created these standards? • Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) • National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) • Educators from participating states (including Illinois) • Content Experts • Researchers • National Organizations • Community Groups • Feedback from teachers nationwide (September 2009 – March 2010)

12. What criteria were used to develop these standards? • Align with college and work expectations; • Include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills; • Build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards; • Informed by top-performing countries, so that all students are prepared to succeed in a global economy and society; and • Evidence and/or research based

14. Common Core Survey http://www.isbe.net/common_core/pdf/ils-impl-survey-results0214.pdf

15. Next Generation Science Standards • NGSS was adopted by the Illinois State Board of Education on February 19, 2014. The NGSS Science Standards will go into effect beginning in the 2016-17 School Year. • These internationally-benchmarked standards provide a new vision for K-12 science and engineering education and set the stage for a significant shift in how those subjects may be viewed and taught in Illinois and across the nation.

16. How are the Common Core Standards organized? (ELA) • Broad, over-arching standards called the College and Career Readiness (CCR) Anchor Standards outline the goals for all students K-12 in each subject. • Grade specific standards are provided following the broad CCR standards, providing a focus for instruction each year. • These grade-specific standards build upon previous grade’s expectations.

17. Educators Acronyms • CCSS: Common Core State Standards • CCRS: College and Career Readiness Standards • ELA: English Language Arts • RL: Reading Standards for Literature • RI: Reading Standards for Informational Text • RF: Reading Foundational Skills • W: Writing Standards • LS: Listening and Speaking Standards • L: Language Standards

18. What are the Purposes of the ELA Standards? • To incorporate and encourage cross-disciplinary literacy expectations & to develop a shared responsibility for students’ literacy development • We all teach reading! • To define end-of-year expectations, or exit outcomes • To define desired results, not the means by which the results are achieved • To integrate the components of literacy • To blend research and media skills into literacy standards

19. Organization of the K-12 CCR Standards for ELA • There are 4 Strands, coded by letter: • Reading (R) • Reading Literature (RL) • Reading Informational (RI) • Reading Foundations (RF) = K-5 only • Writing (W) • Speaking and Listening (SL) • Language (L)

20. Quick Review • For all K-12 CCSS, there are CCR Standards and Grade-Level Specific Standards. • For the K-5 Reading Standards, there are 3 “sections”: • Reading Standards for Literature (RL) • Reading Standards for Informational Text (RI) • Reading Standards for Foundational Skills (RF)

21. Math Acronyms • OA: Operations and Algebraic Thinking • NBT: Number and Operations in Base Ten • NF: Number and Operations Fractions • MD: Measurement and Data • RP: Ratios and Proportional Relationships (6+) • CC: Counting and Cardinality (K) • PARCC: Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (25 States)

22. The Math Standards are NOT… • A prescription for HOW to teach students; • Presented linearly; • “New ways of doing old business”; or • For one group of students only.

23. Standards for Mathematical Practice • Effective when coupled with the following Standards for Mathematical Practice (pg. 6-8), in grades K-12: • Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. • Reason abstractly and quantitatively. • Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. • Model with mathematics. • Use appropriate tools strategically. • Attend to precision. • Look for and make use of structure. • Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. • Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

24. Key Shifts in Mathematics • Content Shifts • Big ideas at each grade • Fluency (K-4) • Algebraic Thinking and Proportional Reason (5-8) • Functions and Modeling (9-12)

25. Key Shift in Mathematics • Instructional Shifts • Teachers should move away from “coverage” toward deeper meaning • Graters emphasis in placed on the 8 standards for Mathematical Practice • Instructional emphasis is placed on natural learning progressions as well as clusters of information • Discrete bits of information are no long the strategy for instruction • Test preparation is no longer the focus of instruction

26. THINK ABOUT IT! • A life- Long Learner is not a Test Taker! • Common Sense is not Always Common Practice

27. Balanced Assessment A balanced assessment system is the strategic use of formative, interim, and summative measures of student performance to address immediate student needs, inform ongoing instructional changes, and guide long-term educational improvement (Douglas County School District, 2013). http://www.isbestandardsbasedreporting.com/

28. "Ideally, test preparation activities should not be additional activities imposed upon teachers. Rather, they should be incorporated into the regular, ongoing instructional activities whenever possible." (1986, p. 10)

29. Assessment FOR LearningCurricular components, classroom quizzes and activities • Includes instructionally embedded activities • Usually teacher/locally developed • Yields rich diagnostic information • Informs and focuses instructional decisions • Occurs when we are teaching the components Content contained is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

30. What Is PARCC? The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers: • Made up of 20 states • Developing common, high-quality math and English language arts (ELA) tests for grades 3–11 • Computer-based and linked to what students need to know for college and careers • For use starting in the 2014–15 school year

31. PARCC Priorities • Determine whether students are college and career ready or on track • Connect to the Common Core State Standards • Measure the full range of student performance, including that of high- and low-achieving students • Provide educators data throughout the yearto inform instruction • Create innovative 21st century, technology-based assessments • Be affordable and sustainable

32. What do Educators Need to Know About PARCC? • http://www.isbe.net/assessment/parcc.htm?col6=open#CollapsiblePanel6 • http://www.parcconline.org/

33. Providing Information • PARCC will provide information to determine how students are progressing in that learning • States, districts, schools, and teachers can use this information to inform: • Student Interventions • Systemic Changes • Curricular and Instructional Changes

34. What do you think • Marzano suggests that schools can have a significant positive influence on student achievement and that the key variable is the individual classroom teachers. • Hattie states that ‘feedback‘ telling students what they have done well (positive reinforcement), and what they need to do to improve (corrective work, targets etc), including clarifying goals has the greatest impact on student achievement. • How do you react to these messages?

35. Helpful Resources • http://www.corestandards.org/ Common Core State Standard Initiative: This is the official site for the CCSSI, featuring information about the standards, news, resources, and answers to frequently asked questions. • http://www.parcconline.org/ Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers: This is the PARCC Assessment official website, including information about implementation in the classroom and guidance for teachers http://www.isbe.net/common_core/htmls/news.htm Capture the Core Newsletter

36. Helpful Resources • http://isbe.net/common_core/default.htm Illinois joined more than 40 states in a collaborative effort to raise learning standards and improve college and career readiness for all students, regardless of where they live. • Professional Learning Series • http://www.onlinecolleges.net/2012/06/27/50-important-links-for-common-core-educators/ 50 Important Links for Common Core Educators