QCC and GPS: What we teach in Georgia

1. QCC and GPS:What we teach in Georgia TOSS 2006

2. The previous Georgia curriculum:Quality Core Curriculum (QCCs) 1986 Quality Basic Education (QBE) Act of 1986 leads to the establishment of the Quality Core Curriculum (QCC). 1995 A major revision of the QCCs was undertaken, and a change in the revision process was instituted.

3. Why new standards? In 2002, an external (Phi Delta Kappa) audit concluded that the QCCs were lacking: • too many topics • too little depth • could not be covered in a reasonable amount of time • did not meet national standards • would take twenty-three years—not twelve—to cover the topics in any depth

4. Georgia Performance Standards Here’s the official Georgia Department of Education introduction: • Introductory video

5. What is a performance standard?Why is it better? Performance standards explain not just what student should know, but what student should be able to do. They provide • greater depth • suggested tasks, sample student work, and teacher commentary on that work. • more specific expectations for assessment, instruction, and student work

6. GPS Process • the result of years of work • written primarily by teacher teams, with a little input by state and national experts, and consultants • Reviewed by the public and by specially established review teams made of teachers, system office personnel, teacher educators, and other university faculty.

7. GPS • used as references curricula from • high-performing states such as Michigan, Texas, & North Carolina, • nations such as Japan • guidelines of national groups such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

9. Assessment • The GPS is a curriculum requirement for every system. Beware of systems that try to add to it at the cost of depth of understanding. • GPS will be tested by the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) and the Georgia High School Graduation Test (GHSGT), as well as high school End-of-Course Test (EOCT). • All tests are under revision. By the 2nd year of phase-in, the CRCT in each subject will be aligned to GPS.

10. http://www.georgiastandards.org/

11. Language Arts Examples (QCCs) Writes paragraphs that include unifying ideas and supporting details (may include topic sentence and clincher sentence).

12. What’s this secret code? Language Arts Examples (GPS) ELA6W1 The student produces writing that establishes an appropriate organizational structure, sets a context and engages the reader, maintains a coherent focus throughout, and provides a satisfying closure. The student a. Selects a focus, an organizational structure, and a point of view based on purpose, genre expectations, audience, length, and format requirements. b. Writes texts of a length appropriate to address the topic or tell the story. c. Uses traditional structures for conveying information (e.g., chronological order, cause and effect, similarity and difference, and posing and answering a question). d. Uses appropriate structures to ensure coherence (e.g., transition elements).

13. QCCs: Computes with integers using models, manipulatives, and/or rules. Uses addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in computation and problem solving with whole numbers, fractions, and decimals. GPS: M7N1. Students will understand the meaning of positive and negative numbers including rational numbers and will compute with them. a. Find the absolute value of a number and understand it as the distance from the origin on a number line. b. Compare and order rational numbers including repeating decimals. c. Add, subtract, multiply and divide positive and negative rational numbers. d. Solve problems using rational numbers. So what’s this one? Mathematics Examples

14. Science Examples (QCCs) • Describes the transmission of sound through a medium. • Identifies the relationships between intensity and loudness, and frequency and pitch. • Illustrates the Doppler effect.

15. So what’s this one? Science Example (GPS) S8P4. Students will explore the wave nature of sound and electromagnetic radiation. a. Identify the characteristics of electromagnetic and mechanical waves. b. Describe how the behavior of light waves is manipulated causing reflection, refraction diffraction, and absorption. c. Explain how the human eye sees objects and colors in terms of wavelengths. d. Describe how the behavior of waves is affected by medium (such as air, water, solids). e. Relate the properties of sound to everyday experiences. f. Diagram the parts of the wave and explain how the parts are affected by changes in amplitude and pitch.

16. Reading Examples (QCCs) Expands reading vocabulary. Expands writing vocabulary. How?

17. So what’s this one? Reading Examples (GPS) ELA6R2 The student understands and acquires new vocabulary and uses it correctly in reading and writing. The student a. Determines the meaning of unfamiliar words by using word, sentence, and paragraph clues. b. Uses knowledge of Greek and Latin affixes to understand unfamiliar vocabulary. c. Identifies and interprets words with multiple meanings. d. Uses reference skills to determine pronunciations, meanings, alternate word choices, and parts of speech of words.

18. Social Studies Examples (QCC) Who? • Identifies well-known and influential Georgians from the colonial era (men, women and minorities).

19. Social Studies Examples (GPS) Example: Analyze the role Georgia and prominent Georgians played in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s including such events as the founding of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Sibley Commission, admission of HamiltonHolmes and CharlayneHunter to University of Georgia, Albany Movement, March on Washington, Civil Rights Act, and the election of Maynard Jackson as mayor of Atlanta.

20. Timeline • Phase in plan

21. Where can I find them? http://www.georgiastandards.org/