Califone Blog

Many districts are trying to help their teachers understand why the Common Core Standards are different from previous sets of standards. But, as often happens with “big” changes in education, educators are left to figure out the details on their own. Fortunately, good resources are beginning to hit mainstream education channels. (more…)

In our last post on blended learning we focused on the basic definitions and drivers for this new instructional model. Essentially it is an “ideal” blend of both face-to-face instruction and student-directed online learning that takes place at home and at least part of the time in a supervised environment in a building away from home. (more…)

As schools and districts prepare for the upcoming Common Core State Standards (CCSS), some have voiced that there have been very few professional development resources available to help explain the changes. Educational publishers have been scrambling to develop training materials, and many districts have created their own. Now that we are just past the mid-year point in the 2012-2013 school year, we are finding that more professional development material is becoming available. (more…)

The International Reading Association (IRA) has published a thoughtful and useful document called “Literacy Implementation Guidance for the ELA Common Core State Standards”. (more…)

The International Reading Association (IRA) has issued a paper entitled, “Literacy Implementation Guidance for the ELA Common Core State Standards.” Their intention is to share the thinking of literacy leaders who “support thoughtful implementation of the Standards for student literacy achievement.” (more…)

How Do the Common Core Standards Affect English Language Learners? 4th in a series

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were created to help our students compete globally against students around the world. The CCSS outlines skill mastery in precise detail to ensure that students are either college- or career-ready when they graduate from high school, including those students who are non-native English speakers. There are hundreds of thousands of English Language Learners (ELL) in our public schools. How does the CCSS address the unique challenges of this student population? (more…)

Part of the underlying structure of the Common Core Standards is the intent to move students from the lower thinking skills to higher order thinking skills, or HOTS, at the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy: analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

Creating podcasts requires the use of all three of the HOTS. This process and the end result – the podcast itself – also fulfill one of the requirements of the Common Core Speaking and Listening skills. Here is the Grade 5 standard: (more…)

Many teachers and librarians are finding that not everything about the Common Core is new to them. In fact, some of what they’ve done in the past will be perfect for meeting some Common Core standards, particularly when it comes to technology. The standards outline what students should know and be able to do but not how teachers should teach. (more…)