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Implementation of the Common Core Standards

A summary of Edmentum’s Common Core State Standards White Paper

Introduction to the Standards The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) don’t define what content should be taught or how it must be taught. Rather, they are the standards against which the states develop their own curriculum framework. The CCSS build on the best K-12 education standards from around the country and research-based best practices, while also leveraging education data from other top-performing countries to help ensure students are competitive against their international counterparts.

The CCSS allow for up to 15 percent content flexibility for local needs.

Require that students demonstrate their knowledge at a deeper and more abstract level.

Give educators the freedom to choose which curricula and instructional methods are most appropriate.

Focus on skills that can be applied not only to academic problems but novel, real-world situations.

The CCSS Are built to better prepare learners for success in college and when entering the workforce.

Are intended to measure a student’s conceptual understanding.

Provide greater focus and clarity, ensuring a shared understanding of the minimum expectations for learning.

Curriculum To help with the transition, the CCSS authors created the Publishers’ Criteria for both math and ELA. These criteria are designed to support curriculum developers, publishers, states, and schools as they develop, revise, evaluate, and select materials that align with the new and more challenging standards

Mathematics The mathematics standards require that learners build skills in analytical reasoning and problem solving by making sense of problems, reasoning abstractly and quantitatively, constructing viable arguments, and using models. The standards also require that learners be precise, use tools appropriately, and seek out structure and patterns in problems.

English Language Arts The ELA standards place a greater emphasis on nonfiction texts to help learners develop language skills and conceptual knowledge that will be relevant to their postsecondary education or careers.

The standards also focus on a “staircase of complexity� for texts used across grades K-12. Learners must be able to speak, read, and write using evidence grounded in text

Deeper Learning In addition to changing what they teach for the CCSS, schools will be changing how they teach. The CCSS assessments will require that learners demonstrate their acquired knowledge at deeper levels than are present in most schools today.

The most commonly used classification for categorizing depth of knowledge was developed by Norman Webb. It includes four levels:

Level Four Using extended thinking to synthesize information or apply it to real-world applications.

Level Three Employing strategic thinking through the use of reasoning or decision making.

Level Two Conceptual knowledge, or the ability to put facts in context.

Level One The ability to recall facts.

Item Types Teachers also will need to guide students through deeper levels of learning and then test their abilities in these new levels of rigor. This involves going beyond rote memorization and multiple-choice questions.

Extended Response

Constructed Response

Answers and explanations of reasoning that allow students to demonstrate complex thinking skills.

Entering a word, phrase, sentence, or number(s).

Technology Enhanced Performance Tasks

Demonstrating a depth of knowledge of big ideas across multiple content standards to better measure capacities such as depth of understanding, complex analysis, and research skills.

Demonstrating content knowledge by leveraging technology to doing things such as selecting points on a graphic, dragging/dropping items from one location to another, manipulating a graph, etc.

Assessments Student proficiency in the CCSS will be measured through next-generation assessments that are being developed by two different entities: the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). The different assessments from the two consortia are split among the 46 states that have adopted the CCSS.

States that have adopted the PARCC and Smarter Balanced Assessments PARCC Common Core Assessment State

PARCC & SBAC Assessment State

SBAC Assessment State

No Common Core Assessment Adopted

Non-Common Core State

Online Learning For schools that currently don’t utilize any online learning programs, the implementation of the CCSS – with its more demanding content, deeper learning, and computerized testing – should be considered the tipping point for embracing technology. There are five preliminary questions schools and districts should ask when evaluating online learning solutions:

Do we have the technological infrastructure in place to support them?

Schools and districts first need to confirm they have the hardware and bandwidth in place to support online learning solutions. Solutions providers often can work in tandem with school IT professionals to ensure that the necessary resources are in place.

Are they easy to use?

Online learning solutions should be intuitive and easy to use for both educators and learners.

It’s also critical that teachers and administrators have access to customer support for their online solutions to ensure they understand how to use the product and get the most value out of it. This should include readily available technical support, product onboarding or orientation, and ongoing workshops.

Are they easy to buy?

Ensure the learning solutions qualify for either state or federal government funding. Additionally, centralizing purchases from a single provider rather than multiple niche providers requires less time up front and fewer pain points down the road as the solutions are implemented throughout a school or district.

Do they work together?

Learning solutions should be able to share information, operate from a single, centralized roster, and otherwise be able to communicate with each other. This makes it easier to track data and monitor progress – across a class or an entire district – while also easily streamlining instruction across products.

Is their efficacy proven?

While cost can too often be an overriding factor, learning solutions have little value if they aren’t effective.

Teachers and administrators should inquire about any research or third-party evaluations before they consider buying learning solutions.

Results The 20112012 Kentucky state tests were the first in the country aligned to the more rigorous Common Core State Standards (CCSS). While the tests were not the actual CCSS tests that will be implemented in 2014-2015, they were specifically built to measure proficiency in the more rigorous standards. Most importantly, the results could be representative of the significant challenges ahead for dozens of other states that have signed on to the CCSS.

Kentucky proficiency drops after implementing their new standards:

Elementary School Math

Elementary School Reading

Elementary School Math

Elementary School Reading

21st Century Classrooms As the 21st century classroom continues to blend high-quality instruction with an online curriculum and technology-based learning environment, it will be the responsibility of schools and districts to determine how that setting evolves around new technologies, changing standards, and the world into which their students graduate. Technology is no longer supplemental to education, but rather engrained in it.

About Edmentum Edmentum is redefining the 21st century classroom. With more than 50 years of experience driving significant advances in the industry, Edmentum offers a wide variety of innovative solutions spanning a multitude of program areas to empower 21st century teaching and learning.

Our Common Core and standards-mastery programs provide instruction, practice, formative assessment, and real-time reporting to guide instruction based on state and Common Core standards. In response to the Common Core State Standards, we have undertaken major development efforts to not only ensure that existing instructional and assessment resources align to the standards but to create new solutions for students and educators that are written specifically to produce Common Core outcomes.

Study Island and Edmentum Test Packs will soon include brand-new PARCC- and SBAC-aligned item types designed to promote higher-order thinking and inquiry.

For more information on Edmentum’s online learning solutions, please visit www.edmentum.com.