Adoption of Common Core Brings Opportunity

One can look at the adoption of the Common Core State Standards as an exercise - making a large chart in Excel that lists each new standard on the left, and the corresponding former standard on the right. State-level Departments of Education that have done this laborious work call this chart their "Crosswalk." At a glance, you can see the comparison and also identify the gaps.

(BTW- these excel charts on State websites could provide a solution to the challenge noted in my previous blog related to tracking individual student progress on each standard. While the document would be quite long, the excel chart could be used. Erase the data from the right column that outlines the former standards, and use that space to write in comments on student progress for each one of the new standards listed on the left side of the chart. The forms, however, are pdfs and would have to be converted.)

Back to my topic - opportunity. Adopting the Common Core is more than an excersize in making charts. It is an opportunity to enhance instruction, an opportunity to increase accountability, an opportunity to freshly analyze a lesson and a student response to that lesson, an opportunity to enhance a lesson.

As a case in point, this year we are asking each teacher to add a section to their submitted (monthly) review of their instructional goals. In this new section, they include information on the Common Cores standards that are addressed in their lessons. Our educational consultant, whom we have hired this year to support teachers in the process of adopting the standards, meets one-on-one with the teachers to review a lesson plan (among other things). This is an analytic process in which both review such topics as: Which standard was addressed in this lesson? How do you know whether the students accomplished the instructional goal? Which students do you think "got it" (group #1) Which didn't (group #2)? Which students are you not sure about (group #3)? What will we do next to take group one to the next level, to check in again with group #2 and group #3?

These are normal processes that all teachers (who are engaged in good classroom instruction) go through. But the adoption of new standards allows us to do this process with renewed energy and focus,and ultimately to greater individual growth.