1. Common Core Initiatives Shifts to Practice The ELA Coordinator Network January 16, 2014
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2. Our Focus Question What does it mean to be a NYS High School Graduate?
Take 2-3 minutes with an elbow partner and answer this question
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3. The 26/65% Concern
New York's 4-year high school graduation rate is 74% for All Students.
However, the percent graduating college and career ready is significantly lower.
June 2012 Graduation Rate
Completion Model
Readiness Model
% Graduating
All Students
74.0
35.3
American Indian
58.5
18.8
Asian/Pacific Islander
81.6
56.5
Black
58.1
12.5
Hispanic
57.8
15.7
White
85.7
48.5
English Language Learners
34.3
7.3
Students with Disabilities
44.7
4.9
*Students graduating with at least a score of 75 on Regents English and 80 on a Math Regents, which correlates with success in first-year college courses.
Source: NYSED Office of Information and Reporting Services
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4. College Remediation in NYS
Over 50% of students in NYS two-year institutions of higher education take
at least one remedial course.
Source: NYSED Administrative Data for all Public, Independent and Proprietary 2- and 4-year institutions of higher education
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5. What Does Remediation Mean?
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6. Economic Impact?
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7. Increased Urgency
A large majority of jobs lost in the recession and in the recovery had been held by workers with a high school diploma or less.
The only real gains made during the still struggling recovery have been in jobs filled by workers with at least some postsecondary education.
The gradual shift to more-educated workers has been going on for decades, but the recession gave it a mighty push.
It also left the country with an urgent need to find a way to train workers for the more skilled jobs.
Source: The College Advantage: Weathering the Economic Storm. Georgetown University Center for Education and the Workforce
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8. Why Readiness Matters – Labor Market Is More Demanding
A post-secondary education is the “Passport to the American Dream”
Of the projected 47 million job openings between , nearly two-thirds will require workers to have at least some post-secondary education – and experts say this percentage will only increase.
14 million job openings will go to people with an associate’s degree or occupational certificate and pay a significant premium over many jobs open to those with just a high school degree.
Our work is important because our students are entering a much more competitive labor market where the vast majority of jobs will require at least some post-secondary education.
Sources: Pathways to Prosperity Project, Harvard University, February 2011; Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018, June 2010.
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9. Where Are the 26%
Slightly less than 46 percent of the nation’s young high school dropouts were employed on average during This implies an average joblessness rate during 2008 of 54% for the nation for young high school dropouts. Disaggregated, this paints a grim picture;
Blacks at 69 %
Asians at 57 %
Whites at 54 %
Hispanics at 47 %
Source: The Consequences of Dropping Out of High School Joblessness and Jailing for High School Dropouts and the High Cost for Taxpayers. 2009
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10. What Would Kuhn Say?
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11. The Necessity of a New Paradigm
Career Ready Students
Data Driven Instruction
Common Core State Standards
Evidence-based Observation and Feedback
Cannot be viewed in isolation.
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12. Leadership Under the Paradigm of Readiness
To meet challenges such as these we need a different idea of leadership and a new social contract that promotes our adaptive capacity rather than inappropriate expectations of [technical] authority
From Ronald Heifetz - Leadership Without Easy Answers
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13. Domains of College and Career Readiness
Defines the academic knowledge
and skills students need to be
successful in college and
careers.
Talking Points:
The New York State Education Department (NYSED) believes that expanding and refining our definition of CCR to include benchmarks in multiple domains over time will help all educators in the State to assess and improve students’ college and career readiness.
Specifies the non-
cognitive, socio-emotional knowledge and skills that
help students successfully
transition from high school to
college or careers.
Describes the career-
specific opportunities
for students to gain the
knowledge, skills, and
competencies they need
to pursue and succeed in their
chosen career.
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14. The Critical Focus
The only way to achieve dramatic improvements in student achievement is to impact the daily work that students and teachers are doing within the four walls of the American classroom.
Source: Embracing the challenge of classroom-level reform. Kathleen Porter-Magee. September 26, Located at
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15. The Critical Shifts The How must be flexible, not the What…
6 Shifts in ELA/Literacy
Balancing Informational and Literary Text
Building Knowledge in the Disciplines
Staircase of Complexity
Text-based Answers
Writing from Sources
Academic Vocabulary
6 Shifts in Mathematics
Focus
Coherence
Fluency
Deep Understanding
Applications
Dual Intensity

16. All students (IDEA)
All students must be challenged to excel within the general curriculum and be prepared for success in their post-school lives, including college and/or careers.

17. For students with disabilities, the How must be flexible, not the What…
6 Shifts in ELA/Literacy
Balancing Informational and Literary Text
Building Knowledge in the Disciplines
Staircase of Complexity
Text-based Answers
Writing from Sources
Academic Vocabulary
6 Shifts in Mathematics
Focus
Coherence
Fluency
Deep Understanding
Applications
Dual Intensity

18. Accommodations
Provide multiple means for students to learn the standards.
Provide opportunities for students to express what they know and can do.
Use devices, practices, interventions, or procedures to afford equal access to instruction or assessment.
Reduce or eliminate the impact of the student’s disability so that he or she can achieve the standard.
Maintain the rigor of the content being taught.
Maintain achievement expectations.

19. Modifications
Change the core content standard or the performance expectation. ELA/ Literacy 7 RL 4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of rhymes and other repetitions of sounds (e.g., alliteration) on a specific verse or stanza of a poem or section of a story or drama.

20. What must be protected…
In ELA/Reading, the standards…
establish a “staircase” of increasing complexity in what students must be able to read
require the progressive development of reading comprehension so that students advancing through the grades are able to gain more from whatever they read.
if followed from early grades ensure a level of background knowledge and academic vocabulary in secondary students

21. What must be protected…
In ELA/Writing:
The ability to write logical arguments based on substantive claims, sound reasoning, and relevant evidence is a cornerstone of the writing standards, with opinion writing—a basic form of argument—extending down into the earliest grades.
Research—both short, focused projects (such as those commonly required in the workplace) and longer term in depth research —is emphasized throughout the standards but most prominently in the writing strand since a written analysis and presentation of findings is so often critical.

22. What must be protected…
In ELA/Speaking and Listening:
The standards require that students gain, evaluate, and present increasingly complex information, ideas, and evidence through listening and speaking as well as through media.
An important focus of the speaking and listening standards is academic discussion in one-on-one, small-group, and whole-class settings. Formal presentations are one important way such talk occurs, but so is the more informal discussion that takes place as students collaborate to answer questions, build understanding, and solve problems

23. What must be protected…
In ELA/Language:
The standards expect that students will grow their vocabularies through a mix of conversations, direct instruction, and reading. The standards will help students determine word meanings, appreciate the nuances of words, and steadily expand their repertoire of words and phrases.
The standards help prepare students for real life experience at college and in 21st century careers. The standards recognize that students must be able to use formal English in their writing and speaking but that they must also be able to make informed, skillful choices among the many ways to express themselves through language.

24. What about Early Literacy?
In ELA/Early Literacy, the stakes are high:
42%of 3rd grade boys and 34% of third grade girls in third grade read below grade level*
One in six children who are not reading proficiently in third grade will not graduate high school*
* Hernandez, D. (2011).Double Jeopardy: How third grade reading skills and poverty Influence High school graduation. Annie E Casey Foundation.

25. Rapid Naming Phonological Deficit Deficit The Double Deficit
How quickly we link stimuli to words
Phonological Deficit
Connecting letters and letter combos to sounds
Solving for these Deficits:
Frequent opportunities for students to learn and reinforce the spelling/sound patterns necessary for proficient decoding in these early grades.
Frequent opportunities for oral comprehension, rich language experiences, background knowledge to keep students’ comprehension progressing.
Frequent exposures to coherent texts which are connected to the primary materials.

26. Poverty: Make that a Triple Deficit
Rapid Naming
Deficit
How quickly we link stimuli to words
Phonological Deficit
Connecting letters and letter combos to sounds
Poverty
Massive Language Gap
Deliberate skills instruction (Lisa Delpit was right!)
Frequent opportunities for oral comprehension, rich language experiences, background knowledge to keep students’ comprehension progressing
Frequent exposures to coherent texts which are connected to the primary materials.
Exposure to varied, spiraled, and sophisticated syntax, content knowledge, and vocabulary.
Leveled text structure does not prohibit domain specific acceleration

27. The CCSS ELA and Early Literacy
The K-5 Reading, Language, and Reading: Foundational Skills standards demand a curriculum that addresses the triple deficit.
The standards require a early literacy program that “overwhelms the problem” that is too frequently not addressed in traditional early literacy programs, including the imperative building of background knowledge/schema and academic vocabulary.

28. The ELA standards inherently address SWDs and Reluctant learners
The CCSS in Reading require teachers slow down—and go deep—with texts at grade-level complexity while encouraging students to read a volume of text of their choice, at their level, independently.
For readers with compounded skill deficits, this may mean slowing down to the paragraph, sentence, even word level….

29. “…  for students with disabilities reading should allow for the use of Braille, screen-reader technology, or other assistive devices, while writing should include the use of a scribe, computer, or speech-to-text technology. In a similar vein, speaking and listening should be interpreted broadly to include sign language.”

30. In math…
Focus: The CCSS in math also require teachers to slow down and dig deeply into content. Students get the gift of time. Teachers spend time on fewer concepts. Instead of a mile wide and an inch deep, take time to master essential content.
Focus on the major work.
The standards are yelling, “SLOW DOWN!”

31. Idea #1: Use PARCC MCFs to evaluate unit and grade-level goals
Example, Grade 5:

32. Coherence:
The CCSS call on us to carefully, logically connect standards from grade to grade. Connect to the way content was taught the year before. The standards are designed to be an escalator, not a roller coaster.
Baked into the standards is a guide to understanding prerequisite content for a given cluster or domain.

33. Idea #2: Use domain and cluster headings to develop remediation plans

34. Rigor – What It Really Means
In math, rigor simply means that our curriculum should be based on three ideas:
Fluency: Students are practicing procedures efficiently and accurately
Conceptual Understanding: Students know how, but also know why
Application: Students can apply their thinking, often in real world situations

35. Idea #3: Build fluency with a dedicated block of time each day; use key fluencies to differentiate

36. Idea #4: Emphasize visual models at every grade level to increase conceptual understanding

37. Idea #5: Adapt curriculum modules to meet student needs
At the grade and unit level:
Use Overviews to locate modules and topics that focus on the Major Work or to remediate within a domain or cluster
Modify assessments to focus on the Major Work
At the lesson level:
Adapt fluency activities to meet student needs (in terms of content and timings)
Use conceptual understanding activities on a daily basis
Go slow to go fast

38. EngageNY overview documents can guide to curriculum on the Major Work

39. Assessment rubrics show standard alignment; use to choose items that meet students’ needs

40. Assess, track, and celebrate improvement on fluencies from any grade level

41. Dedicate daily time for work on conceptual understanding using module examples

42. Importance of building a supportive culture
Principals are central to empowering teachers and creating a culture that challenges everyone to grow without fear.
Teachers have the power to to support students’ sense of well-being and confidence without propping them up and doing the work for them.
The adults in a student’s life have the power to define efficacy. Hard work+ Effective Effort + Support + Strategies = Getting Smarter.

44. Alfred Binet
“A few modern philosophers…assert that an individuals’ intelligence is a fixed
quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased.”
We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism… With practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment…
and literally become more intelligent than we were before.”
Binet co-authored the IQ test.

45. Fixed Mindset Assumptions: Intelligence is a “thing.”
Intelligence is innate and fixed.
Intelligence is measurable and is unevenly distributed.
Innate ability determines learning and achievement.

46. Growth Mindset Assumptions:
Innate ability explains only part of learning and achievement.
Intelligence is not fixed.
Intelligence grows incrementally and is influenced by expectations, confidence and effective effort.
Effective effort=working hard and smart (using effective strategies)

47. Effective Effort Strategic Support What You Need to Know Get Smart.
Smart is not something you are.
Smart is something you get.
Think you can.
Get Smart.
Effective Effort
Strategic Support

48. Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset
The fixed mindset creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over.
If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, personality and moral character, then you’d better prove you have a healthy dose of these.
The growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.
Although everyone may differ in every way…everyone can change and grow through application and experience.

49. Jeff Howard on Dweck
Very smart
Kinda smart
Kinda dumb

50. Quiet Reflection: Who are your VSs, KSs, KDs?
Very smart
Kinda smart
Kinda dumb

51. Perceptions Count Our perceptions influence our:
Self Concept
Expectations for future situations
Feelings of power and efficacy
Subsequent motivation to put forth effort
Language
Behavior

52. Attribution Theory: Why Do I Believe This?
EXTERNAL FACTORS
TASK
DIFFICULTY
LUCK
INTERNAL FACTORS
SUFFICIENT ABILITY
EFFORT

53. CALVIN AND HOBBES by Bill Watterson

54. Self reflection
What is your story?

55. Students
How do you see fixed mindset playing out in your work? How does it affect the behavior of adults and/or students around you?
How do the beliefs we have about students play out in Common Core implementation?

56. Smart is something you can get.

57. Thank You
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