John F. Kennedy once said, “A child miseducated is a child lost.” As educators it is our job to teach all students to the best of our ability in order to prevent children from becoming lost in the educational realm. We can do this by adequately familiarizing ourselves with the current demands of the United State’s educational system. These demands consist of implementing a rigorous and relevant framework into every classroom along with knowing and being able to meet the new Common Core State Standards. Throughout this paper, I will discuss the Rigor and Relevance Framework and how it relates to the Common Core, the new demands of the Common Core Standards, how these standards provoke new means of assessment, the shift towards more informational-based texts, and the new ways of assessing writing through performance.
By adapting an academic tool with the words “rigor” and “relevance” in its title it is bound to ensure that no student will be miseducated. The staff of the International Center for Leadership in Education developed the Rigor and Relevance Framework in order to effectively evaluate and develop curriculum, instruction and assessment. This framework focuses on two important features. The first one is the continuum of knowledge, which can be seen on the left hand side of the table on the next page. This continuum is based on the six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy and explains the different levels in which we think. The second dimension is the continuum of action, which can be seen on the bottom of the table. It describes how knowledge is put into action (Daggett, 2012). As the table suggests the two dimensions are then divided into four different quadrants.
In Quadrant A (Acquisition) students are required to learn and ...
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...rnationl Center for Leadership in Education: http://www.leadered.com/pdf/Common%20Core%20Standards%20Paper%20FIN AL.pdf
Daggett, W.R., Gendron, S., & Heller, D. (2010). Transitioning to the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Assessment. Retrieved from The International Center for Leadership in Education: www.leaderEd.com
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, & Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards for English language arts and literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. Retrieved from Common Core State Standards Initiative: http://www.corestandards.org/wp-c ontent/uploads/ELA_Standards.pdf
Smarter Balanced. (2012). Smarter Balanced Assessment. Retrieved from Smarter Balanced: Assessment Consortium: http://www.smarterbalanced.org/smarter-balanced- assessments/
Forty-two states have adopted Common Core State Standards. These standards were created to focus only on English and Mathematics. In effect of states adopting Common Core Standards, all other subjects taught in school seemed less important. History and Science standards are no longer stressed. Students are limited to being proficient in only two subjects. The Common Core deprives students’ ability to be skilled in multiple areas. These standards do not provide a slight “break” from the challenging fast past teaching of English and Mathematics. In addition to limiting education to English and Mathematics, Jill Bowden explains that the Common Core is affecting kindergarteners by taking “away from materials that encourage playful learning.” (36).
Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum, Brief Edition (2nd Edition) (2 ed., pp. 413-429). New York: Longman.
Today, schools are making it a priority for teachers to follow the strict guidelines of a “one size fits all testing curriculum.” Educators must prepare students for the tests that could make or break their future. This curriculum is focused only on teaching students what they need to know in order to pass the test. “Because the test is based largely on the memorization of facts, teachers will have to teach their students these specific facts instead of teaching for deep comprehension and understanding of material.” (Martin, 309) As a result, students do not learn the true lesson. Although it is highly important that students pass “the test,” this strictly based curriculum is ignoring the important academic skills and fundamentals needed for their future, even beyond the years of high stakes testing; without these needed skills students will be left in the dark once they have graduated from high school. Students often learn on different levels and their educational requirements are not being met with the “one size fits all” approach. Those who create these tests tend not to include those who learn on a different educational level; rather their focus is pointed towards the money rather than on the success of all students. Children need to learn sk...
For decades, education in America has been focusing on the basics of education which include the bare minimum competencies of reading, literacy, writing, mathematics, and science for students in elementary and secondary schools. In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act reaffirmed the need for basics and pushed for all students to be evaluated based on a set of minimum standards. These standards instituted the need to be tested in a manner so that students from all ethnic and economic backgrounds have the same opportunities. Furthermore, these standards have not included the need to adapt to the continuous change in order to meet the needs of today’s economy and industry. When the focus should be adapting to higher standards of education, public education system still remains the same. Meanwhile, private schools and vocational training gives students a better chance at obtaining a job in today’s world.
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 purposes of assessing special education students are to determine their progress in achieving annual goals and short-term objectives. Assessment also provides diagnostic information for instructional decision making decisions. In recent years, formal and standardized tests have been criticized for their inability to integrate assessment and teaching. Teachers know that the students are learning; however, they do not know the extent of learning. Standardized tests typically measure a small amount of grade-level skills. Also, standardized tests stress factual information; thereby, forcing teachers to teach to the test. For example, they evaluate writing skills by asking grammar questions rather than having the students write a story. Since standardized tests, do not measure an individual student’s knowledge, the impact on students with exceptional needs can be harmful. This dissatisfaction has forced educators to look at different forms of assessment in order to provide information about student learning and achievement.
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...
Rigor in education is the current direction all instruction is moving towards and “true rigor is creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels, each student is supported so he or she can learn at high levels, and each student demonstrates learning at high levels” (Blackburn, 2011). Rote memorization is no longer an option, as analysis and application are the main focus. For this as a society we must remember, “it is difficult to conceive of an effective teacher who doesn’t have a deep understand of content knowledge” (Chard, 2013, 2015, p. 218). Pedagogical knowledge is extremely important and teachers are the most equipped to convey their
“Standardized tests are defined by W. James Popham, former president of the American Educational Research Association, as ‘any test that’s administered, scored, and interpreted in a standard , predetermined manner.” (ProCon.org, 2011, p. 6) The debate over these tests has become a very hot topic especially since the implementation of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act. The debate over these tests covers all academic areas and therefore is relevant to the area of children’s literacy. At the core of this debate is the main stance of both sides:
tests were primarily employed as measures of student achievement that could be reported to parents, and as a means of noting state and district trends (Moon 2) . Teachers paid little attention to these tests, which in turn had little impact on curriculum. However, in the continuing quest for better schools and high achieving students, testing has become a central focus of policy and practice. Standardized tests are tests that attempt to present unbiased material under the same, predetermined conditions and with consistent scoring and interpretation so that students have equal opportunities to give correct answers and receive an accurate assessment. The idea is that these similarities allow the highest degree of certainty in comparing result...
Wiley, T.G., & Rolstad, K. (2014). The Common Core State Standards and The Great Divide. International Multilingual Research Journal, 8(1),
Assessments were not aligned and incongruent with what was happening in the classroom. It was difficult to accurately measure student success (Polikoff, Porter, & Smithson, 2011). One of the greatest contributors to the difficulty of aligning assessments to standards is that the standards are so complex (LaMarca, 2001.) How can a single assessment demonstrate mastery of so much content? Also, some assessments items measure multiple standards. This can be difficult to analyze. Furthermore, some assessment contain content that is neither developmentally appropriate for the intended audience or it may content that is not mentioned in the standards (Polikoff, Porter, & Smithson, 2011). This can be discouraging and frustrating for both students and
This emphasis on thoughtful evaluation has kept Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction a relevant, trusted companion for over sixty years. And with school districts across the nation working feverishly to align their curriculum with Common Core standards, Tyler's straightforward recommendations are sound and effective tools for educators working to create a curriculum that integrates national objectives with their students' needs. In essence, Tyler’s Rationale is represented by the four-step sequence of identifying objectives, selecting the means for the attainment or achievement of these objectives that is through educational or teaching-learning experiences provided for students, organizing these educational or teaching-learning experiences, and evaluating the outcomes or what have students attained or achieved. Tyler suggested when developing curriculum, objectives data should be gathered from three sources, namely; the learner, society, and subject matter.
Through assessment students and teachers are able to determine the level of mastery a student has achieved with standards taught. Both formative and summative assessment should be purposeful and targeted to gain the most accurate data to drive further instruction (Ainsworth, 2010). While this syllabus does a good job of identifying the need for both formal and informal assessments, the way in which this is communicated does not provide enough detail for understanding. Simply listing assessment types does not give any insight into how these assessments fit in the learning process of this course. While some of the assessments mentioned could be common assessments chosen by the school or district to gain insight into the effectiveness of instruction, the inclusion of authentic assessments is most beneficial to students and demonstrates learning in a context closer to that of a work environment (Rovai, 2004). Unfortunately, this particular course, according to this syllabus, relies heavily on quizzes and traditional tests and essays to form the bulk of assessment opportunities. While other activities, such as formative assessments, journaling and discussions are mentioned as possible avenues for scoring, they are given a very low percentage of the overall grade. This shows that they are not valued for their ability to show progression and mastery. If this is indeed the case, this puts the students as a
The writing process is not a practice that comes easy to all people, especially with students who are below their grade level in reading and writing. Even at the high school level, students still struggle with fully developing their writing. Teachers today are under the constraints of state grade cards and standardized tests which often ask students to write in almost every subject level. Content teachers become frustrated when they feel like they need to add writing to their already full curriculum. The reality is that writing needs to be taught with content curriculum. Writing takes students beyond the regurgitation of typical multiple choice questions. Writing allows students to prove their understanding of the relationships and complexities of the materials covered.