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Common Core — For Success Keep Everyone in the Loop
The move to the Common Core State Standards requires much more than adopting a new curriculum and some new standards. Common Core requires not only a major change in what teachers teach, but also a major shift in the way they teach.
Many states have done a good job letting their educators know “what” has to be done. The challenge, however, is the availability of resources to help administrators and teachers fully understand “how” to do it. The discussion of “how” to implement CCSS focuses generally on teachers. I would submit that the first professional development, and the first focus of “how,” must rest with district and school leadership.
For leadership, the challenge is how to successfully guide their teachers in understanding, planning for, and implementing the new standards. CCSS is not just another curriculum change. CCSS requires teachers to change the way they teach. And while the mechanics, the alignments and the “what-you’ve-got-to-dos” are important, equally, if not more so, is how this transition will affect teachers on a personal level.
Common Core State Standards don’t just change the system… they change everybody in that system. Institutional change is hugely personal. Faculty members, professionals that they are, are human. They may approach change professionally, but they really want to know how all of this impacts them personally. “What do I have to do, what changes do I have to make and how do I do it? What kind of support will I have? Will I have help or do I have to figure this out all by myself?” This is human nature. Strong leaders recognize it, respect it and take steps to help teachers make their personal transition. Leadership is most successful when it brings a clear focus, an informed process and a supportive hand to faculties who are being challenged to invent a new way of doing business. They just can’t do things the way they always have anymore.
There are a number of steps for leadership to address. My suggestion is that the most important of these steps is “Communicate.” If teachers want to know how this will impact them personally, have a quick, complete, supportive communications plan. Let them know:
1. Who will provide the overall district and school leadership and who makes up the implementation team.
2. The specific tasks and responsibilities for the administrative team and how they will be supported.
3. Criteria and indicators to determine the instructional staff’s understanding of common core standards, so that personal impact can be assessed and addressed.
4. The contact person in charge of communicating information regarding the new standards to the staff. The plan on how information will be disseminated to parents and community stakeholders.
5. Current instructional resources that have been inventoried; needed resources determined and a plan for how those resources (including professional development) will be made available to teachers.
6. The design and makeup of various curriculum teams to align curricula to common core state standards and what their individual role is.
7. How you are going to support them. Outline the professional development plan; plans for ongoing pd, coaching and support; and once this ship has left the dock, how leadership will keep it afloat and pointed in the right direction.
At the end of the day, the transition to the Common Core State Standards involves a lot of teacher anticipation and anxiety that precedes preparation. Effective, clear communication can ease the anticipation, reduce the anxiety and help preparation occur smoothly.
Dave Boliek
CEO
The Centers for Quality Teaching and Learning
www.qtlcenters.org
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If you’re looking for a collaborative project with a visual end product, here’s another new Web 2.0 resource to try. NOTA lets users create an interactive digital poster that includes a variety of resources, including text, photos, clipart, maps, links, and more. There’s even a message board function, though it seems to be in beta mode.
Washington, DC instructional technology specialist Mark Brumley posted a very nice three-minute tutorial on the HP Teacher Exchange, and the user interface is really pretty self-explanatory once you understand the basics that he covers. You have to create a user account, but are up and running after you complete that quick process. I was able to create the following QTL Poster as a test in just about 15 minutes.
NOTA allows users to create an interactive digital poster.
If you have an appropriate project, I highly recommend giving NOTA a try.
A participant in one of our recent ExplorNet workshops on Multimedia and Webpage Design gave us a pleasant surprise when she told us she had a prior history with our programs. Gail Thompson teaches Business Education now at Raleigh’s Athens Drive High School. But back in 2006 and 2007, she was a teacher at Dillard Middle School in Wayne County when the school implemented the QTL Foundations program. She told us she still uses the concepts she learned in QTL almost every day. Continue reading
(RALEIGH) – What good is technology if it sits on a shelf? That’s been a persistent question for administrators juggling budgets and deciding whether interactive tools are worth the price. Amid budget cuts and belt tightening, no one wants to spend precious dollars on tools that aren’t effective. But instructional leaders are desperately looking for solutions that help teachers manage and effectively teacher larger and ever more diverse groups of students. Student response systems, or clickers, are one such tool, when they’re used purposefully to increase engagement and assess student understanding. Continue reading
One-on-one teacher coaching plays an ever larger role in our efforts at The Centers for Quality Teaching and Learning. The reflective approach our expert coaches use has a two-fold benefit: it trains teachers to examine and improve their own classroom practices, and does so without putting them on the defensive. Continue reading
Looking for ways to engage your students and motivate them to be self-directed learners? Here is the second of five installments of surefire tips! This time we focus on Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences and find out “WHAT KIND OF ‘SMART’ ARE YOU (AND YOUR STUDENTS)?
WHY DO WE CARE ABOUT HOW KIDS PREFER TO LEARN?
Dr. Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences has strong implications for how our students will develop into adults, get jobs and support families. Many adults find themselves in jobs that do not make optimal use of their most highly developed intelligences – for example, the highly bodily-kinesthetic individual who is stuck in a linguistic or logical desk job when he or she would be much happier in a job where they could move around, such as a recreational leader, a forest ranger, or physical therapist.
The theory of multiple intelligences gives adults a whole new way to look at their lives, examining potentials that they left behind in their childhood (such as a love for art or drama) but now have the opportunity to develop through courses, hobbies, or other programs of self-development. Continue reading
Rachel Porter
QTL Senior Instructional Specialist
Recently a colleague gave me a piece of paper with what looks like a paper doll with a backpack on it. This paper doll student is covered with little text boxes containing attributes like ‘literate consumer of media’, ‘multi-lingual’, ‘capable technology user’, ‘critical thinker’, ‘strong team contributor’, and on and on…17 in all. She explained that the image represented the characteristics a present-day kindergartner should possess by the time they graduate from high school. Hmmm…interesting.
I immediately asked myself, “Do I possess these 17 characteristics?” Continue reading
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