The first book I read as part of my Capstone experience is The Core Six: Essential Strategies for Achieving Excellence written by Harvey F. Silver, R. Thomas Dewing, and Matthew J. Perini. In this book, the authors discuss 6 key strategies for teachers and educational leaders can use to better help students with the “demands of the Common Core.” (Silver, 2012) These strategies are designed to help students with the standards in English, Social Studies, Science, and any other technical subject in any educational level. The Core Six Strategies are: Reading for Meaning, Compare & Contrast, Inductive Learning, Circle of Knowledge, Write to Learn, and Vocabulary’s CODE. The authors of this book go into great detail of explaining these strategies and giving exceptional example lessons on what a teacher can do in their own classroom. This book is a required read for all administrators in my district and they are required to do read studies in their staff development activities.
This book was an easy read for anybody in the educational field, because of its explanations of the strategies and how teachers can use these strategies in their classroom with minimal effort. Most of the strategies allow the teacher to be an observer to student learning, allowing the students the opportunity to lead their own group discoveries and discussions, which is paramount to high level education. Most of the examples given in the book are strategies that most teacher do on a daily basis, but it shows the readers how that strategy better unlocks the state standards for the students. The book also uses examples in all subject areas in education, so teachers of Math and English can relate the strategies to their own class. The book also pushes t...
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...ent rate then these students are used to. The teachers and educational leaders need to be encouraged and motivated to make the change and have the confidence that the strategies they are using can still be used to help students achieve the mastery of those standards. This book as a helpful guide will do both for struggling campuses, it gives them helpful suggestions to teachers and examples on how to use them in the classes. It also explains the importance of teachers working together in their subject area for increasing student engagement and achievement. I will use this book and will recommend it to other teachers to help them keep students on the path to high learning and high achievement on our high stakes tests.
Works Cited
Silver, H., Dewing, R., & Perini, M. (2012) The Core Six: Essential Strategies for Achieving
Excellence. Alexandria, VA. ASCD
Students dread the time of the year when they stop with their course material and begin to prepare for test. Everyone is in agreement that some type of revolution is needed when it comes to education; eliminating standardized test will aid the reform. The need for standardized testing has proven to be ineffective and outdated; some leading educationalist also believe this because the tests do not measure a student’s true potential. This will save money, stop labeling, and alleviate stress in students and teachers.
Thornton Fractional South High School represents a diverse school building in the South Suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. We consist of a traditional 9th through 12th grade building with the exception of busing students to the District 215 Tech Center for vocational classes. We share these resources with our sister school TF North. Although we consistently outperform TFN, we are behind the state averages on both the ACT and the PSAE. On the ACT, we are below the state average on the composite score as well as on all three recorded sub-categories. We were closest to the state average in Science and the furthest in Reading. As for the PSAE test to measure those students meeting and exceeding standards, we are again behind the state average. TFS averaged 40.5% of students tested to meet or exceed standards. Meanwhile, the State of Illinois average was 53%. Currently, we are on the Academic Watch Status year 2. We were unable to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) or the Safe Harbor Target Goal for Reading and Mathematics which are the two target areas. Our goal as a school is to reach the AYP and attempt to reach and exceed the state averages on the ACT and PSAE.
Teachers who lack passion and desire to teach what they are given can translate and manifest its way to students as they also lose aspirations to come to school and learn only what will be on exams they are supposed to take to show that they are “learning.” Students come to school to learn things they did not know prior and with the acquisition of knowledge it can many a times create a drive for students to expand upon a particular subject, which can ultimately determine their careers and goals, but this whole process is shutdown with standardized tests, as many topics and subjects are limited to a few basic ones that put out the fire students are expected to have.
They found three key things in the research. These are, first, investing in strengths, second, surrounding themselves with the right people while maximizing their team and third, understanding their followers’ needs.
Bushweller, Kevin. "Teaching to the Test." Introduction. American School Board Journal, 1997. 1. The American School Board Journal. National School Boards Association. Web. 15 Apr. 2011.
The use of standardized tests has led to decreased motivation in students, a totally inaccurate way to assess a districts success, and a curriculum that is focused to strongly on only few subjects. By looking at research we can see that testing reduces children’s intrinsic motivation to learn (...
America’s children have found increasing difficulty with school. The curriculum in schools is claiming to be harder in higher levels, but the lack of focus and direction in the younger grades has made for decreased grade levels and lower mastery in several basic areas such as math, writing, and reading skills. Standardized test scores are at an all time low, as increasing amounts of children progress through the educational system having not at...
The Common Core State Standards have made tremendous gains for the world of education. Students nationwide are learning the same standards and skill sets. Nationwide standards are clearly necessary, so one state isn’t far more advanced or lagging behind other states. Not only has the Common Core provided national standards, it has created rigorous standards that encourage critical thinking, and prepare students for college curriculum and careers pursued after their schooling. Before Common Core, teachers could teach anything they wanted without purpose and support. CCSS have required teachers to b...
The Common Core has been a highly debated educational initiative based in the United States that provides children of all race, religious denomination, and socioeconomic background the same educational path from kindergarten through senior year of high school or the 12th grade. The Common Core provides six standards on its website that serve as its oath. “The standards are: 1. Research- and evidence-based. 2. Clear, understandable, and consistent. 3. Aligned with college and career expectations. 4. Based on rigorous content and application of knowledge through higher-order thinking skills. 5. Built upon the
In these changing times one of the biggest aspects of society that should be updated on a regular basis is education. Changes in curriculum as well as methods of teaching need to be revised each and every year. With this idea came the idea of the Common Core State Standard which is currently being adopted by forty-four out of fifty states in the United States. This new rework is designed to help better prepare students for college, universities, and the work place. However, not everyone believes this is the right move education should be taking at this moment. Those in support state this is the best decision possible to teach the children of the 21st century. Others say the cause for the decline in the quality of education in the United States stems from other sociological factors not from how the system is currently being worked. Even more are concerned if schools will be ready for this new wave of change. Will Common Core be effective in helping prepare high school graduates for the future? Only time will tell if the Common Core Standards proves effective in further helping students be prepared for the future.
5. The authors mentioned that they worked with cooperating teachers, however, the role of the teachers was not clear in the manuscript. This issue is connected to another question about “good or exemplary practice.” How do you decide which good practices are happening at a school and how do you connect theory to practice in that
Ornstein, A. C., & Lasley, T. J. (2004).Strategies for Effective Teaching. (4th ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill.
[1] Goldratt, Eliyahu M. and Cox, Jeff (2004). The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement. Retrieved from http:// ishare.edu.sina.com.cn
Standardized tests are used to evaluate a student’s performance, however, tests do not take external factors into account. This already means that tests are often inaccurate methods of measuring a students academic potential. Also, the tests do a disservice to students as they evaluate their proficiency at a time of testing, rather than their growth and improvement over the course of the year. The tests have become an outdated method of challenging students and only have negative impacts at this point. The tests develop high levels of stress in students, which is not healthy for an individual during the most important development years of their lives. Eliminating these tests will assist students in the long run as they can accommodate more time towards learning information rather than stressing over a single test. By replacing tests with more in-class lessons students will be free of constant stress and still learn the curriculum. Research shows that students are unable to remember information on standardized tests in the long run, therefore, by spending more time learning and understanding information, students are able to have a better understanding of topics. Therefore, by removing standardized tests students will be provided with a better, more effective, and fair educational
In this course I experienced an important change in my beliefs about teaching; I came to understand that there are many different theories and methods that can be tailored to suit the teacher and the needs of the student. The readings, especially those from Lyons, G., Ford, M., & Arthur-Kelly, M. (2011), Groundwater-Smith, S., Ewing, R., & Le Cornu, R. (2007), and Whitton, D., Barker, K., Nosworthy, M., Sinclair, C., Nanlohy, P. (2010), have helped me to understand this in particular. In composing my essay about teaching methods and other themes, my learning was solidified, my knowledge deepened by my research and my writing skills honed.