wk2

DU696

Welcome to Week 2

As Week 2 begins, you are encouraged you review the Week 5 homepage to prepare for when you work in a mock Professional Learning Community (PLC) and complete a team assignment. Start thinking ahead now about your role and responsibilities during Week 5 and contact the instructor for clarifications on any expectations. In Week 1, diversity through 21st Century Teaching and Learning was investigated. During Week 2, one discussions and an assignment are included, focusing on the Common Core State Standards and 21st Century Skills and Standards.

Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI)

CCSS is an initiative in the United States that outlines what every K-12 student should know and be able to do in English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics at the end of each grade level. The CCSSI seeks to establish consistent educational standards across the nation to ensure students are prepared for success after graduating from high school, be it going into a college program or entering the work force. The goal of CCSSI is to provide more depth and breadth of learning across the grade levels, where students can explore concepts at a deeper level than before. For more information, view this approximately three-minute video from  DCPublicSchools  (Links to an external site.) (2012), which provides a look at why the CCSS were created. When viewing the video think about how you do or intend to incorporate CCSS into your classroom.

Remember, the current focus of the CCSS is on two content areas, ELA and Math. This week, you focus on both sets of standards and how these relate to technology to enhance differentiated instructional strategies to support all learners. However, before we can begin to talk about technology and differentiated instruction in regards to CCSS, it may be helpful for us to review the two subjects.

ELA includes six categories; reading, writing, speaking and listening, language, media and technology and cursive and keyboarding. View this approximately six-minute video from the  Professional Educators Association (Links to an external site.)  (n.d.) about ELA where they explain the movement of CCSS and the creation of ELA standards. While viewing this video, think about your former or current classroom setting or any exposure you have to the classroom and how the ELA standards were, or are being used within the ELA curriculum. If you are not currently in the classroom, consider how you might ensure that you include CCSS within your ELA curriculum. Consider sharing your thoughts on the video as part of your discussions for the week or in the Global Campus Café!

The Common Core Mathematics Standards consists of two sections; practice and content. In practices, there are eight set principals revolving around modeling, constructing arguments and critiquing math reasoning skills to name a few. In the content area, the CCSS are in four domains of mastery learning for grade levels kindergarten to fifth grade, middle school six and seventh grade and high school ninth thru twelfth grade. View this approximately seven-minute video from  Dr. Raj Shah, owner and founder of Math Plus Academy (Links to an external site.)  (2015) where the movement of the CCSS and the creation of Math Standards are explained. While viewing this video think about your own math experiences in grade school: how is teaching and learning different now than it was while you were in school? Consider sharing your experiences in our Global Campus Café!

Now that the CCSS have been revisited, evaluation of how the CCSS (Math and English Language Arts) can be used to influence the use of technology-enhanced differentiated instructional strategies can occur.

Technology and the CCSS

Upon review of the ELA CCSS, you will notice that technology is embedded into most of the standards. For example:

RI.3.5 Grade 3 students: Use text features and search tools (e.g., key words, sidebars, hyperlinks) to locate information relevant to a given topic efficiently.

RI.1.5 Grade 1 students: Know and use various text structures (e.g., sequence) and text features (e.g., headings, tables of contents, glossaries, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text.

When considering the context of technology, a connection can be made with how utilizing technology can enhance differentiated instructional strategies, thereby supporting the needs of all learners. For example, the two standards listed above clearly demonstrate how students should know how to look up information using key words. Teachers could provide opportunities for students to meet these standards through library and internet related activities. One could also use web based student anthologies to look up key words while reading a story. All of these methods represent differentiation instruction through the incorporation of technology.

Week 2 Assessments Overview

Always review the complete instructions for each assessment on the week’s homepage in addition to viewing this additional guidance.

Discussion 1 – Common Core State Standards

In part one of  this discussion, you summarize your understanding of the foundation of the CCSS (Math and English Arts) and evaluate how CCSS (Math and English Language arts) can be used to influence the use of technology-enhanced differentiated instructional strategies to support the needs of all learners. You will also attach a link to your Folio and reflect on your redesign activity from the Week One assignment. Think about how the incorporation of technology is used to enhance instruction. All too often technology is an afterthought when creating lessons. Connect the idea of how can you intertwine technology to ensure that the needs of diverse learners are being met. Part two of the discussion you will provide a link to your Folio and a one paragraph reflection about your experiences with the redesign assignment from Week 1.

Assignment – 21st Century Skills & Standards

This assignment requires you to think about 21st Century Support Systems, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and International Society for Technology in Education Student (ISTE-S) Standards and their relationship with quality instructional planning, delivery, and learner achievement. In this assignment set up the case for why the redesign meets the relationships between instruction planning, delivery and learner achievement. As well, discuss what you are teaching in the lesson plan or curriculum project and how it aligns to the components of 21st Century Support Systems, CCSS and ISTE-S.

 

References

Common Core State Standards Initiative (2012).  Read the common core standards: The standards (Links to an external site.) .  Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/3       

DC Public Schools (2012, Nov 2)  Three-min video explaining the common core state standards (Links to an external site.) . [Video file] Retrieved from http://youtu.be/5s0rRk9sER0

Professional Educators Association (n.d.)  ELA and literacy (Links to an external site.) . [Video file] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHo0jg6FwjI#action=share

Shah, R. (2015, Jan 6).  Common core math explained (Links to an external site.) . [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/X_CK1e0Lmxw