Common Core Standards and the Edmonds School District

1. Common Core Standards and the Edmonds School District November 4, 2013

2. National standards • Math • English Language Arts – Reading, Writing, Language, Speaking & Listening • Includes History/Social Studies, Science, and other Technical Subjects • Focus on Career and College Readiness • Articulated K-12 • Assessments aligned with the standards are being created by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Common Core State Standards http://www.k12.wa.us/Corestandards/default.aspx

3. Standards – what we want our students to know and be able to do

4. Building content knowledge through content-rich nonfiction • Balance of literary and informational (non-fiction) text • Literacy in the content areas • Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational • Text-based questions and answers • Writing using evidence • Regular practice with complex text and its academic language • Academic vocabulary • Increased complexity of text What are the big shifts? English Language Arts

5. Students reading more non-fiction texts in Science, Social Studies, Health, etc. • Pairing of literary and informational texts, which can include artwork, film, etc. • Shifts in writing – opinion/argumentation, narrative, informative/explanatory • Short research projects What will this look like in the classroom?

6. Focus – Teachers significantly narrow and deepen the scope of how time and energy is spent in the classroom • Coherence – Teachers carefully connect the learning within and between grades so that students can build new understanding onto foundations built in previous years. • Rigor – Students deeply understand and can operate easily within a math concept before moving on. They learn more than the ‘trick’ to get the answer right; they learn the math. • Mathematical Practices – Students in all grades are expected to reason and explain, make sense of problems, persevere in problem solving, model using tools, and see structure and generalize. What are the big shifts? Mathematics

10. Deeper focus on certain concepts and skills • More opportunities for students to explain their thinking • Students engaged in discussion around concepts and problems • Real-world problems that require students to use various skills and strategies What will this look like in the classroom?

11. Assessment

12. Smarter Balanced Assessments • Aligned with Common Core Standards • Measure “college and career readiness” • Shared by 25 states who will all use common cut scores • Administered online • Will provide achievement scores and growth information for individual students and groups

13. Smarter Balanced Assessments • Field testing in 2013-2014 school year • Operational in 2014-15 school year • Will assess: • English/Language Arts (reading across the content areas, writing, and listening) • Mathematics • Include assessments for grades 3-8 and 11 • Will replace MSP in reading, writing and math • Will replace HSPE/EOCs in a phased-in approach (grad requirement for Class of 2019)

14. Assessment Requirements for High School Diploma

15. Summative Assessments for Accountability Components: • Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT) • Items adjust to functioning level of each student • Items include both selected-response (e.g., multiple choice) and constructed-response (written responses) • Performance Tasks (PT) • Complex questions with multiple parts and extended constructed responses

16. Staff TrainingCommunication

17. Teachers learning via a train-the-trainer model – learning takes place on building days or during other collaborative opportunities • Job-embedded learning alongside elementary coaches and secondary coordinators • Principal leadership sessions to understand the key shifts and the implications for instruction and assessment • Ongoing learning opportunities throughout the year, going deeper into certain topics What does teacher and principal learning look like?

18. Developing plans for next year – district-wide and school-based • This year, conducting a review of the elementary progress report • Will be done with a representative group of teacher leaders • Public process in the spring Communication with Parents and community