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Leveraging the Common Core State Standards to Support Young Children’s Learning. Dr. Lisa S. Goldstein Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA lsgoldstein@scu.edu. Welcome! Today’s plan…. Getting to know the CCSS. Common Core State Standards
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Leveraging the Common Core State Standards to Support Young Children’s Learning Dr. Lisa S. Goldstein Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA lsgoldstein@scu.edu
Getting to know the CCSS • Common Core State Standards • English Language Arts (& Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects) • Mathematics • Common Core State Standards • Adopted by 45.5 states • Common Core State Standards • Meant to comprise 85% of the curriculum
CCSS Adopters PLUS: District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, US Virgin Islands, Dept of Defense schools
Why do we need the CCSS? • Establish and maintaingreater consistency and continuity across states • Clear goal: all students will graduate from HS college and career ready • Benchmarked against the curricula of countries that have highest rates of literacy and numeracy • Increased rigor
How are they different from the HCPSIII? • Fewer • Higher • Clearer
Are the CCSS good for young kids in preK and primary grades? • Yes! And no… • It depends • How the CCSS are framed and interpreted • How K-12 educators implement the CCSS
CCSS are DAP-compatible • Implementation of the CCSS should not create a rush for “academic shovedown” • No long lists of content and skills to teach • No emphasis on testing testing testing • The CCSS are compatible with DAP • We could use the implementation of the CCSS in K-12 to create space for DAP in preK and primary grade classrooms
CCSS-DAP Alignment Areas • Explicit attention to role of development in learning • Holistic perspective • Support children’s language development • Focus on children’s thinking • See children as capable, active learners • Teaching as guidance, not telling • Instructional decisions belong to teachers- use DAP to enhance learning
1. Pay explicit attention to the role of development in learning • Reflect respect for the developmental realities and needs of young learners • This perspective appears in different ways in the CCSS-Math and the CCSS-ELA
Explicit attention to the role development plays in learning • CCSS- Mathematics • Young kids need more • Repeated exposure to new concepts • Focus on the most powerful knowledge
Explicit attention to the role development plays in learning • CCSS-English Language Arts • Certain anchor standards aren’t present in the kindergarten list
Holistic, integrated perspective • Integration across academic disciplines is expected • Use of multiple forms of representation; children have flexibility in showing what they know and can do • Similar habits of mind are presented in the CCSS-ELA and the CCSS- Math • Leads to more coherent learning experiences
Emphasis on language development • Support English language development for all children in all content areas • Expressing ideas and opinions • Presenting evidence to support ideas • Communicating clearly • Using rich and precise language • Developing academic vocabulary • Deliberate English language development is not reserved for ELLs
Focus on student thinking and metacognition • Students are guided toward deep understanding of concepts • Not just mastery of procedures or memorization of information • Explicit efforts to develop students’ awareness of themselves as learners, thinkers, and problem solvers
See young children as capable, active, sense-making learners • Student-directed investigations and presentation of findings begin in kindergarten • Provide evidence to support statements • Discuss rationale and reasoning • Standards demand higher order thinking • Students pose questions, solve problems
Understanding of teaching • Teaching should involve • More asking, listening, observing, reflecting • Less telling and talking • Giving students opportunities to develop confidence in their own capabilities • Fostering independence, perseverance • Guiding students as needed • Use lots of engaging, age-appropriate strategies to build students’ connections with the content
Acknowledge teachers’ expertise • Acknowledge teachers’ right to use their expertise to make principled, informed, intentional instructional decisions • Specify what students should learn, but not how it should be taught • CCSS was designed to be 85% of the curriculum in a given grade- room for additions and customization • Teacher discretion is expected and desired…..
An example from the CCSS-ELA • “The use of play with young children is not specified by the standards, but it is welcome as a valuable activity it its own right and as a way to help students meet the expectations in this document.” (p.9)
How to teach the CCSS content to young learners? • You DO NOT need to make your young students do “grown-up” work • Sit at desks doing drill and kill worksheets • Focus only on academic skill development • Eliminate pretend play, art, dress-up, blocks, hands-on activities, field trips
Use DAP to teach the CCSS • Use your professional expertise • Knowledge of your kids • Knowledge of the community • Knowledge of child development • Create age-appropriate learning experiences that enable students to learn the content through fun, engaging, meaningful experiences
Recap: CCSS-DAP Alignment Areas • Explicit attention to role of development in learning • Holistic perspective • Support language development • Focus on children’s thinking • Children are capable, active learners • Teaching as guidance, not telling • Instructional decisions belong to teachers- use DAP to enhance learning
Small Group Discussion Prompts • How much did you know about the CCSS before today? • What did you think about the CCSS before today? • How have your knowledge or feelings about the CCSS changed?
CCSS Work Session #1 • Work in grade level teams using your CCSS-Mathematics document • Consider and discuss the CCSS-M in light of the issues on our CCSS-DAP Alignment Areas slide • Make note of ways in whichyou believe the CCSS-M is well-aligned with DAP and not well-aligned with DAP • We will share out in _____ minutes
CCSS-DAP Alignment Areas • Explicit attention to role of development in learning • Holistic perspective • Support language development • Focus on children’s thinking • Children are capable, active learners • Teaching as guidance, not telling • Instructional decisions belong to teachers- use DAP to enhance learning
CCSS-DAP Alignment Areas • Explicit attention to role of development in learning • Holistic perspective • Support language development • Focus on children’s thinking • Children are capable, active learners • Teaching as guidance, not telling • Instructional decisions belong to teachers- use DAP to enhance learning DEBRIEF
Digging into the CCSS • How are the CCSS different from the Hawaii Content &Performance Standards? • What will this mean for me in real life? • What adjustments will I have to make to my teaching practice and my curriculum?
Shifts: Implementing the Common Core State Standards ELA Shifts Math Shifts Focus Emphasize key knowledge/skills Coherence Content builds across grade levels Links within grade levels Rigor Conceptual understanding Procedural skill/fluency Application to real-world problems • Complexity • Academic language • Rich vocabulary • Evidence • Support opinions with examples from text or other source • Knowledge • Build content knowledge using non-fiction texts
Simplifying the Shifts • Integrate the ELA and Math shifts • Align with preK-grade 3 practices • And the result is: • Richness • Reasoning • Rationales • Beef up your curriculum and teaching practices to emphasize these elements
Richness • Offer students both depth and breadth • Provide lots of instructional variety • Write and read all literary genres • Full range of mathematical experiences • Help students articulate their ideas using specific, precise language • Use and teach discipline-specific vocabulary and academic language • Build content knowledge and vocab by reading and discussing non-fiction texts
Elbow partners: Richness • Turn to an elbow partner and discuss • An example of “richness” already present in your classroom and practice • How you could tweak your plans for Monday to increase the richness of the experiences you offer your students
Richness? • Questions? • Comments? • Anyone want to share a tweak you could use to heighten the richness of one of your lessons in the coming week?
Reasoning • Model and encourage critical thinking • Help students develop strategies for recognizing and solving problems • Expect students to explain their process and thinking to the class • “Work alouds” • Push students to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts, not just their ability to answer a question
Elbow partners: Reasoning • Turn to a your other elbow partner and discuss • How teachers can access students’ reasoning • What new vocabulary students will need to learn to be able to explain their reasoning to a teacher and/or to a peer
Reasoning? • Questions? • Comments? • Anyone want to share some of the new, reasoning-related vocabulary you plan to teach to your students in the coming week?
Rationales • Help students become aware of and articulate the reasons for their actions and decisions • Expect students to refer to evidence from a text to support their opinion • Ask students questions like • How did you make that choice? • What other possibilities did you consider? • How did you decide which was the best? • Are you sure? Why are you sure?
Elbow partners: Rationales • Turn to someone you haven’t elbowed with and discuss • What’s the difference between reasoning and rationale? • How can teachers push students to engage in more rigorous thinking without seeming mean or harsh?
Rationales? • Questions? • Comments? • Anyone want to offer some positive, productive ways to push students to articulate their thinking processes?
CCSS Work Session #2 • Work in grade level teams using your CCSS-Language Arts document • Consider and discuss your plans for teaching the CCSS-LA in terms of • Richness • Reasoning • Rationales • We will share out in _____ minutes
CCSS-LA Work Session Debrief • Ideas for increased richness? • Ideas for tapping into student reasoning? • Ideas for getting students accustomed to providing rationales?
Concluding Q&A Q: Are the Common Core State Standards great? Are they “meh?” Are they awful? A: It doesn’t matter. The CCSS are already here (in 45.5 states).
Our most pressing task? • Determine how teachers can use the implementation of the CCSS as a way to strengthen and enrich the learning opportunities made available to young children in ourclassrooms.
Mahalo! • Contact me at lsgoldstein@scu.edu