Assessments and the Common Core

LaSalle County Teacher Institute DayOct. 11, 2013

Are we really preparing our students to enter the work force someday?

Ask yourself…

“I Choose C”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY2mRM4i6tY&noredirect=1

How is Common Core Different?

•The Common Core...provides a clear and rigorous set of learning targets aimed toward what students must learn. 

•The CC standards are designed to help students to develop deep understanding of topics with connections to authentic, real world scenarios. 

•The standards aim to engage students in building knowledge and skills needed for success in college and careers.

Literacy is taught in ALL subjects!◦ Science and Technical subjects:

http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RST/6-8

◦ History: http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RH/6-8

◦ Writing (this should be happening in EVERY class): http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/WHST/6-8

But it’s NOT just for math and ELA teachers!!!

Using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles

How Do I Make the Shift?

Think Backwards in Planning Your Lessons◦ Backwards Design

Getting Started…

Identify Desired Results

This is a kid‐friendly question that represents the BIG IDEA. It is sufficiently broad to allow students to demonstrate their understanding of the material in its entirety.

A question is essential when it: 

◦ causes genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content;◦ provokes deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new

understanding as well as more questions;◦ requires students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas,

and justify their answers;◦ stimulates vital, on-going rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior

lessons;◦ sparks meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences;◦ naturally recurs, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and

subjects.

Grant Wiggins (2007). What is an essential question?. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.authenticeducation.org/ae_bigideas/article.lasso?artid=53. [Last Accessed Sept 15 2013].

Use an Essential Question

How well can fiction reveal truth? Why did that particular

species/culture/person thrive and that other one barely survive or die? 

Is there really a difference between a cultural generalization and a stereotype? 

Examples of Essential Questions

Determine Acceptable Evidence

Create one rubric that focuses on the CONTENT or standards and not on the project itself.

How Do I Assess So Many Different Types of Evidence?

Planning for Learning and Instruction

In your group, determine identified results and acceptable evidence for the essential question:

Is it better to buy or lease a car?

Let’s Practice

What pieces of evidence were you able to come up with?

Discussion

In your group, create an essential question on a unit that you already teach.◦ Does the question meet the essential question

criteria? should not be able to be answered in a sentence/do not have one

"correct" answer

should create a deep and "enduring understanding“

are multilayered questions

point to the "key inquiries and the core ideas of a discipline“

are cross-curricular

result in other questions

Let’s Dive in Deeper!

What standards are you going to meet?

What content do you want the students to retain?

Now, Identify the Desired Results of that Question

What types of assignments prove your students know the content?

List many types of assessments that will fulfill the desired results.

What does the rubric look like?

Determine Acceptable Evidence

Plan Instruction

Rubistar is a good place to start!

Rubric

Present your group’s lesson to the entire group.

Share it with the ROE so that we can make it available to other teachers in our area and so that you have access to others’ lessons too!

Share and Share Alike!