COLLEGE SUPPORTING THE COMMON CORE

By Allison R. Stormo

Idaho finalized the Idaho Core Standards in mathematics and English language arts in 2011 after modifying the Common Core State Standards, which is a set of clear college- and career-ready standards for kindergarten through 12th grade. Teachers first began teaching these standards across Idaho in the 2013-14 academic year.

University of Idaho College of Education is leading the way in the effort to help K-12 teachers prepare for and teach to the new standards. A few highlights detailing our efforts:

Mathematics

UI’s Regional Mathematics Center in Region 1 is one of several centers established throughout the state and housed within colleges of education at each of the four-year state institutions of higher education. The Region 1 center, operated out of Coeur d’Alene, is directed by Julie Amador, assistant professor in Curriculum and Instruction.

Personnel at the centers work collaboratively with the State Board of Education, local industries and faculty members through the state to provide support for K-12 teachers through professional development, conferences, instructional videos, co-teaching, or assistance developing curriculum and lesson plans.

“One of the strengths is the collaboration of us coming together for this common vision and common goal to do something great for students and teachers in Idaho,” Amador said.

Anne Adams will be entering her fourth year of the five-year, $5 million National Science Foundation grant, Making Mathematics Reasoning Explicit. The partnership program is helping train 75 fourth- through 12th-grade teachers who come to campus for 2½ weeks each summer along with several days through the academic year for professional development workshops. The teachers learn how to implement the standards through new teaching techniques, then apply the knowledge by training other classroom teachers in their schools.

“We have to set up opportunities for students to think and reason for themselves, and we have to support kids in learning how to do that,” Adams said.

The MMRE grant helps teachers develop students’ mathematical reason by giving students frequent opportunities to make explicit justifications and generalizations. Adams emphasizes to teachers that students need to be engaged in the new standards throughout the year multiple times a week.

Training

Cassidy Hall, Technology Integration Specialist with the Doceo Center for Innovation + Learning, has been part of the center’s professional development efforts for K-12 teachers that have resulted in 175 sessions, reaching nearly 2,600 participants.

As a clinical assistant professor with a long history in K-12 education, Hall has intimate involvement in preparing herself and others to teach the new standards, specifically the English Language Arts Technology standards.

“My role with the Doceo Center is to help faculty members, teachers and districts identify what their needs are.”

Hall says this often involves in-depth conversations with the districts about goal setting. Once goals are established, she is able to cater to a district by creating a professional development opportunity based on what the needs are in showing how technology can be utilized in teaching the ELA standards. She also helps districts determine what technology can be utilized in the curriculum and what to purchase by aiding in evaluation of factors such as budget, the number of teachers and students to be reached and the overall impact desired.

Technology

With support from the Doceo Center, Assistant Professor Penny Tenuto and Professor Mary Gardiner, both in the Department of Leadership and Counseling, are working together to place technology in the hands of administrators, coaches, teachers and trainers in schools in Regions 3 and 4. They are working with six school districts and in each district have placed between 10 and 15 iPads and five Swivls — a robotic platform that connects to a smartphone or tablet and can be used for recording class lectures.

They are studying ways districts are implementing this technology in association with other tools — such as streaming, cloud storage and electric journals — and how those tools enlighten teaching and the process of implementing the Idaho State Common Core.

ENGLISH/LANGUAGE ARTS

In summer 2014, the Doceo Center formed a partnership with the Idaho Core Coaching Network and the NW Inland Writing Project to offer the Idaho Core Summer Institute.

Through this collaborative partnership, about 45 instructors in two locations in Regions 1 and 2 — Moscow and Coeur d’Alene — learned about literacy standards and how to incorporate and implement technology while teaching for the common core. The teachers spent two weeks in summer 2014 in the focused training, which is worth four credits was being followed by five training days during the 2014-15 academic year and a weeklong session this summer. Each teacher received a Samsung Galaxy tablet to use in their teaching.

The training helps establish a set of skills that allows for exploration of technology that supports collaborative writing and writing across curriculum for ELA standards. It also teaches strategies for integrating reading and writing into the content area classroom.