After reading The Diary of Anne Frank, a student is asked, “Who is Anne Frank?” To answer the question, the student simply recalls the information he or she memorized from the reading. With the implementation of Common Core, students are expected to become critical thinkers instead of just recalling facts and ideas from text. In…
Each state that has adopted Common Core State Standards will select an assessment consortium to assess how children are progressing in school. The two options most widely chosen at this point are: Smarter Balanced and PARCC. Each assessment consortium has provided practice test questions and today we will review one of these questions and discuss its potential impact on classroom instruction.…
TO GIVE OR NOT TO GIVE HOMEWORK…That is the question! The amount of homework students are given differs greatly across grade levels and states. Some students are given hours of work while other students are assigned little or no work to be done at home. So what’s appropriate? What is the purpose of homework? What…
To teach Concept Development, present a written concept definition and then explain and elaborate on what the concept means using examples that illustrate the definition (critical attribute). The “Big Idea” here is to teach concept definitions by pointing back and forth between attributes (definitions, examples, and non-examples). We call this Work the Page. Work the…
Click the image to see an example of a Concept being taught. What is Concept Development? The Concept is the big idea or generalization contained in the Learning Objective. In Concept Development, you explicitly teach the students the concept, what it is, the generalization, the big idea. The Concept includes a written, bulletproof definition, along…
Pencils and Scantrons are a thing of the past! No more rote memorization and long hours spent cramming for the test! Common Core assessments are computer-based adaptive tests that require students to use critical thinking skills to answer a variety of questions from the simple (read: traditional) to the complex (read: these are intense!). One…
Common Core Assessment Analysis Each state that has adopted Common Core State Standards will select an assessment consortium to assess how children are progressing in school. The two options most widely chosen at this point are: Smarter Balanced and PARCC. Each assessment consortium has provided practice test questions and today we will review one…
What is Checking for Understanding? Checking for Understanding (CFU) is the backbone of effective instruction. Checking for Understanding is the teacher continually verifying that students are learning what is being taught while it is being taught. CFU provides the teacher the opportunity to improve learning based on student responses throughout the teaching and learning process.…