Common Core Standards Movement

Jacquey BarberCraig Strang

Movement for Common Core Standards

• Next generation standards• “Fewer, clearer, higher”• College and career ready• State-led effort—not nationally mandated• Coordinated by the National Governors

Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)

• Funded by the Carnegie Corporation of NY (and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)

First Wave of Common Core—Development of ELA and Math Standards

• Final standards were released on June 2, 2010 (process that took less than a year was run by Achieve)

• Initial state partnership that launched the effort included 48 states and the District of Columbia

• Currently, 28 states have formally adopted the Common Core ELA and Mathematics Standards

Of import to science education:• Common Core Standards for English

Language Arts– Reading Standards for Literacy in Science

and Technical Subjects– Writing Standards for Literacy in Science and

Technical Subjects• Built on the movement to acknowledge

the importance of disciplinary literacy

Disciplinary Literacies?The literacy skills students need to be successful in learning in a subject matter discipline

Science vocabulary

Kinds of text features

Ways of reading

Structure of information

What kind of evidence is privileged

Disciplinary Literacy:(Shanahan and Shanahan —2008)

Supported by NRC reportTaking Science to School (NRC: 2007) redefines what science proficiency is from just a view on content and inquiry to one that encompasses the broader practices of science including:

Science as a way of doing, thinking, talking, reading, and writing

Understanding the nature and development of scientific knowledge

Knowing the norms for presenting scientific arguments and evidence

Lots of evidence from the literacy perspective as well

• Carnegie Council on Advancing Adolescent Literacy (2009)

• Lee & Spratley (2010)• National Governors Association (2006)• Graham and Perin (2007)• Short and Fitzsimmons (2007)• Shanahan and Shanahan (2008)• Snow and Biancarosa (2003, 2004)

What does “adoption” of the Common Core Standards mean?

• Not clear whether states adopting ELA and Mathematics will also adopt Science and Social Studies

• Not clear once adopted, what modification standards might undergo

Levers to adopting the Common Core

• Currently: Race to the Top– Requires using Common Core Standards (or “other

college and career ready” standards)• Proposed: In the administrations blueprint for

renewing the ESEA, Title 1 Funds:– Ditto

• Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sponsored districts:– Adoption of Common Core is required

Development of Next Generation Standards in Science—Unprecedented Partnership

• NAS — Drafting conceptual framework for new science standards

• NSTA—Eliciting feedback from the science education community and process transparency

• AAAS—Eliciting feedback from the science community

• Achieve Inc—Facilitating feedbac, from policy stakeholders and drafting the actual science standards

Timeline for Conceptual Framework

• Development—Winter/Spring 2010• Public Comment—July 12 through Aug 2• Publication—December 2010

Timeline for Next Generation Standards

• Development—Winter/Spring 2011• Public Comment—April/May 2011• Publication—December 2011

Next Generation Standards to become Common Core Standards?

• Not known if the NGA and CCSO will adopt these standards as part of the “Common Core” standards movement

Big Ideas in the Conceptual Framework for Next Generation Science Standards

• Fewer: Less is more• Learning is a developmental progression• Knowledge AND practices• Rethinks young children’s capacity for science )

(example: explanations not just for older kids: start in K)

• Important to build on student interest• Embrace cultural diversity as an asset to

learning

Dimensions

• 1: Domain knowledge – Life– Earth & Space, – Physical– Technology & Engineering

• 2: Cross-cutting elements– Concepts– S/E/T & Society

• 3: Practices

Science Practices

• More than inquiry—inquiry is an important practice of science, but not the only one

• More attention paid to communication (reading and writing science text) and argumentation

Reading

“scientists and engineers were found to consider reading as essential to their work and as their primary source of creative stimulation. Thus the dominant practice in science and engineering is not ‘hands-on’ manipulation of the material world but rather a ‘minds-on’ social and cognitive engagement with ideas, evidence and argument.” (p. 5-6)

Practices in New Framework…

What Scientists Do• Investigation, Hypothesis,

and Coordination• Models• Communication and

Discourse

Science Practices• Asking Questions• Modeling• Devising Testable Hypotheses• Collecting, Analyzing, and

Interpreting Data• Constructing and Critiquing

Arguments• Communicating and Interpreting

Scientific and Technical Texts• Applying and Using Scientific

Knowledge

Cross-cutting concepts

• Patterns, similarity, and diversity• Cause and effect: mechanism and prediction• Scale, proportion, and quantity• Systems and system models• Energy and matter: flows, cycles and

conservation• Form and function• Stability and change

Criteria for selecting core ideas

A core idea for K-12 science instruction is a scientific idea or practice that meets at least dome of these criteria:

1. Has broad importance across multiple science and/or engineering disciplines and/or is a key organizing concept of a single discipline

2. Provides a key tool for understanding or investigating more complex ideas and solving problems

3. Relates to the interests and life experiences of students or can be connected to societal or personal concerns that require scientific or technical knowledge

4. Is teachable and learnable over multiple grades at increasing levels of sophistication and depth

Earth and Space Sciences Core Ideas

• Humans are a small part of a vast Universe; planet Earth is part of the Solar System, which is part of the Milky Way galaxy, which is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the Universe.

• Earth is a complex and dynamic 4.6 billion year old system of rock, water, air, and life.

• Earth’s surface continually changes from the cylcing of water and rock driven by sunlight and gravity

• Human activities are constrained by and, in turn, affect all other processes at Earth’s surface

Standards

• “standards based on this framework …should be organized as learning progressions rather than as grade level clusters.”

• “each standard should be defined as the intersection of scientific knowledge and practices”