The Common Core and the Middle Level: A Match To Be Made

1. The Common Core and the Middle Level: A Match To Be Made Nancy Doda, Ph.D., www.teacher-to-teacher.com Jill Spencer, http://jillspencer.net

2. Middle School & the Common Core Warm the Room Turn and Chat with a neighbor What is changing in your school as a result of the Common Core?

3. Mining the Good From the Common Core Being Critical Leaders in the CCSS Initiative

4. The Wonder Years

5. The Middle Level Call Developmentally Appropriate Challenging Empowering Equitable AMLE, This We Believe: Keys to Educating Young Adolescents

6. Turning Points 2000 • Give Authentic and Meaningful Work • Use Ongoing and Multiple Forms of Assessment • Emphasize Critical Thinking • Sustain Focus on Essential Questions and Big Ideas ~Jackson & Davis, 2000. (Turning Points 2000)

7. “American students must be fully prepared to compete successfully in a global economy. The recently released Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5 continues to warn that the United States is quickly losing its competitive edge in the world.” (McNulty & Gloeckler, 2011)

8. The Common Core Mantra • Raise the Bar • Literacy Across All Disciplines • Active & Challenging Learning

9. Grapple Argue Create Persevere Polish Explain Defend Refine Persuade

10. What Kind of Learning Experiences Support These Skills? • gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report on information and ideas • conduct original research to answer questions or solve problems • analyze and create…range of print and non-print texts in media forms • support claims…with valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence • Problems to Solve • Products to Create • Issues to Investigate • Processes to Use and Invent • Arguments to Defend

11. 21st Century Skills • Think, Innovate and Work Creatively • Reason Effectively • Solve Problems and Make Sound Judgments • Collaborate with Others • Communicate Clearly • Be Self-Directed

12. Creativity In 2010, CEOs from 33 industries and over 50 countries named creativity as the most important… skill for the coming years. Phillips, L. (2013). We Aren’t Preparing Young People for Careers at Disney or Apple. 

14. Student in Soundings, Mark Springer Can I figure out what to do when I don’t know what to do?

15. Misleading Myths • Rigor Means Unwieldy • Common Core Means Uniformity • CCSS Address all We Need to Teach • Love of Learning Isn’t Important

16. What Does This Mean For Our Middle Level Classrooms? What real shifts are needed?

17. EMPOWERMENT Putting Students in the Driver’s Seat

18. In which mode of transportation would you best be able to retrace a trip? Consider Why?

19. The Driving Metaphor Of Empowerment

22. What Does it Mean To Put Students In The Driver’s Seat?

23. Empowered Learning Involves Risk Middle Schools Must Develop Trusting and Collaborative Learning Cultures

24. Mrs. Mutner liked to go over a few of her rules on the first day of class

26. Students Help Develop Classroom Norms

27. “Learning is a consequence of experience. …people become responsible and independent not from having someone tell them that they should be responsible or independent, but from having experienced authentic responsibility and independence.” (Angelo V. Boy and Gerald Pine, 1971)

28. WATERSHED CORE VALUES Everyone will strive to be: CARING COOPERATIVE CURIOUS CONFIDENT MOTIVATED RESPONSIBLE

29. John Dewey It is hardly too much to say that in traditional education so much stress is laid upon the presentation to the child of ready-made materials, and the child to bear responsibility for reciting upon this ready-made material, that there is only accidental occasion …for developing motive and reflective attention. (School & Society, 1956)

30. The Perilous Sage on the Stage

31. “Teachers, teachers, teachers, when will they learn. I have the attention span of a raisin…” Research data, (Doda & Knowles, 2006)

32. Control Continuum TEACHER SHARED Example: Text Study Teacher Assigns Reading, but Students Ask Questions Student-Led Discussion Groups Teacher Assigns Reading and Asks Questions

33. Control Continuum TEACHER SHARED Example: Worksheets to Think-sheets Students Choose From Teacher’s List of Acceptable Questions Students Use Open-Ended Think Sheets Teacher Determines Questions For Worksheet

34. Exhibit A

35. REFLECTION • What’s makes this a best practice common core approach? • How does this compare with what you typically see? • How are you currently supporting your staff in their journey towards student empowerment?

36. LITERACY

37. Message To Kids We are not born readers. We become readers.

38. Common Core Stance • Nonfiction in All Subjects • Speaking & Listening • Vocabulary taught well • Reading and Writing Skills

39. Literacy as Part of Meaningful Learning

40. The Middle School Stance Middle schoolers love: • Books that speak to them. • Books that grapple with life issues. • Books they can share with others. • Books that are culture and gender-friendly.

41. Shared Message • If students believe that intelligence is something you can get and not something you already have, they learn more. (Dweck, 2011)

42. What Do Skilled Readers Do? • BEFORE: Anticipate ~ Get ready to enter text • DURING: Participate ~ Get into the text • AFTER: Reflect ~ Review, Use, Evaluate

43. Let’s Try a Piece of Text “From a reader: Blog of Diane Ravitch” ”

44. Read the Statement. What do you think? Agree or Disagree Stand by the Agree or Disagree Side Explain your Thinking (to someone near you). Let’s Start

45. Two Sides: Agree/Disagree • Common core is in the best interest of middle school learners. • There is almost nothing disagreeable about the CCSS initiative.

46. DURING To help the reader become immersed in the text.

47. Marking Text !! Interesting/Important ? Confusing/Curious + I want to recall this

48. Read and Say Something Pairs will take turns talking about the text as they read. Read half the text. Stop and take turns sharing one passage that struck you as critical. Share why.

49. Replace Worksheets With Think Sheets TEXT: __________________________

50. Range of Writing Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.