Alabama’s Implementation Path to College and Career Readiness “Putting the Pieces Together” November, 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2zqTYgcpfg&NR=1

How does it ALL fit together? CIP Formative Assessment Professional Learning College-and Career-Ready Students RtI EducateAlabama

What is the SDE’s Role and Responsibilities? Provide districts the information, professional learning, and resources to support transition to new standards and assessment.

Four Phases and Resources for NEW GOAL of College and Career Readiness CCRS Team Professional Learning Alabama Insight Tool Global Scholar Summer Teaching Academies Regional Planning Team Regional Support Staff (RSS) Differentiated Support CCRS website CCRS Self Assessment Evaluation and Accountability Awareness Initiation & Implementation Follow up/ Support

What is the SDE’s Role and Responsibilities? 2. Ensure alignment of policies and structures to support transition: *Aligned assessments *Flexibility of reading coach *CIP flexibility *Differentiated Support and Accountability *Diploma

What is the SDE’s Role and Responsibilities? Stay focused and ON MESSAGE! *Communicate, communicate, communicate! (Two way) *Partnership with organizations *CCRS website *Posted videos from Dr. Bice

Adopted by State Board of Education November 2010 CCRS-K-8 Mathematics = Alabama Added Content Adopted by State Board of Education November 2010

Phase II-Preparation for Implementation Where Have We Been? Phase I-Awareness Summer 2011 Phase II-Preparation for Implementation Fall 2011- August 2012

Phase II-Implementation 2012-2013 CCRS Implementation Team Summer Academy Implemented in Grades K-12 August 2012

What’s New About the CCRS-Mathematics? Standards for Mathematical Practice + Content Standards Increased rigor in the standards Content shifts in all grade levels New expectations for classrooms

What’s New About the CCRS-Mathematics? Standards for Mathematical Practice + Content Standards Increased rigor in the standards Content shifts in all grade levels New expectations for classrooms

Standards for Mathematical Practice Mathematically proficient students: Standard 1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. Standard 2: Reason abstractly and quantitatively. Standard 3: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. Standard 4: Model with mathematics. Standard 5: Use appropriate tools strategically. Standard 6: Attend to precision. Standard 7: Look for and make use of structure. Standard 8: Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. We have always had content standards….but now we have Mathematical Practice Standards which describe the “habits of mind” we want our students to exhibit…..Teachers must model these behaviors and provide tasks that will allow the students the opportunity to exhibit this behavior.

Model with mathematics #4 I can recognize math in everyday life and use math I know to solve everyday problems. I can… make assumptions and estimate to make complex problems easier identify important quantities and use tools to show their relationships evaluate my answer and make changes if needed

What’s New About the CCRS-Mathematics? Standards for Mathematical Practice + Content Standards Increased rigor in the standards Content shifts in all grade levels New expectations for classrooms

Comparing Standards… 2003 ACOS – Grade 1 2010 ACOS – Grade 1 3. Demonstrate computational fluency of basic addition and subtraction facts by identifying sums to 10 and differences with minuends of 10 or less. 2010 ACOS – Grade 1 6. Add and subtract within 20, demonstrating fluency for addition and subtraction within 10. Use strategies such as counting on; making ten; decomposing a number leading to a ten; using the relationship between addition and subtraction; and creating equivalent but easier or known sums by creating the known equivalent. [1-OA6]

Another Example… 2003 ACOS – Grade 4 2010 ACOS – Grade 4 2. Write money amounts in words and dollar-and-cent notation. 2010 ACOS – Grade 4 20. Use the four operations to solve word problems involving distances, intervals of time, liquid volumes, masses of objects, and money, including problems involving simple fractions or decimals, and problems that require expressing measurements given in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit. Represent measurement quantities using diagrams such as number line diagrams that feature a measurement scale. [4-MD2].

What’s New About the CCRS-Mathematics? Standards for Mathematical Practice + Content Standards Increased rigor in the standards Content shifts in all grade levels New expectations for classrooms

Volume required for solving problems Content Shifts… Volume Introduced 8th 2003 ACOS 5th 6th 7th 8th 2010 ACOS Volume required for solving problems Volume Introduced

What’s New About the CCRS-Mathematics? Standards for Mathematical Practice + Content Standards Increased rigor in the standards Content shifts in all grade levels New expectations for classrooms

Changes in the Classroom… Students are: “Talking” math Actively engaged in activities Solving problem using different strategies “Struggling productively” with problems Using tools and manipulatives Justifying their answers NCTM, 2012

Changes in the Classroom… Teachers are: Using formative assessment to guide their instruction Providing challenging tasks for students Facilitating learning Differentiating instruction to meet their students’ needs NCTM, 2012

What About English Language Arts?

CCRS-English Language Arts + = Alabama Added Content Adopted by State Board of Education November 2010

Phase 1-Awareness 2011-2012 MEGA Conference Webinars Topics Included: Components of the Course of Study Strands (Comparison, New Emphases) Vertical Alignment Content Movement Literacy Standards, Grades 6-12 Phase 1 of the professional development implementation began at MEGA in the summer of 2011. Following this PD, a team of folks began developing several webinars that covered these topics. They were developed for grades K-5 and 6-12. These are posted on our website and if your schjool hasn’t started the process of PD for ELA, this is where you want to start.

Phase II- Initiation 2012-2013 CCRS Implementation Team Training Analyzing the Standards Sample Units of Study Sample Lessons/Curriculum Development Differentiated Instruction for RtI Resources Phase 2 began this past summer. PD was done in all 11 in-service regions for several weeks in June. This was repeated at MEGA. We are now in the process of providing PD for the LEA’s Implementation teams 4 times this year.

Phase II –Implementation 2013-2014 CCRS Implementation Team (Continued) Summer Academy Will be implemented in Grades K-12 August 2013

Three Key Shifts in ELA 1. Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction and informational texts. 2. Reading, writing and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational 3. Regular practice with complex text and its academic language. Since the standards represent a fundamental shift in what is expected of students, they also represent a significant shift in what must be taught and how. For ELA there are 3 key instructional shifts identified by Achieve the Core. (Read each shift on slide) .

Shift #1 Content–rich Non-fiction K-5 - 50/50 ratio Gr. 9-12 - 70/30 ratio 50/50 balance K-5 70/30 in grades 9-12 Students learning to read should exercise their ability to comprehend complex text through read-aloud texts. In grades 2+, students begin reading more complex texts, consolidating the foundational skills with reading comprehension. Reading aloud texts that are well-above grade level should be done throughout K-5 and beyond.

Building Knowledge through Content -rich Non-fiction Very little informational text required in elementary and middle school. Informational text is harder for students to comprehend than narrative text. Literacy plays a role in science and technology, history and social studies and in classes focused on the Arts – and in English Language Arts. Background knowledge has long been connected to comprehension. Reading informational text is essential in building background knowledge. The standards demand that students work on literacy in all the content areas, not as a distraction or as an addition to their study of content, but to build their understanding of the content being studied. Students are required to read very little informational text in elementary and middle school. Non-fiction makes up the vast majority of required reading in college/workplace. Informational text is harder for students to comprehend than narrative text. Supports students learning how to read different types of informational text.

Shift #2 Reading, Writing, and Speaking Grounded in Evidence from Text Ability to cite evidence. Being able to locate and deploy evidence are hallmarks of strong readers and writers. Most college and career writing requires students to take a position or inform others citing evidence from the text, not provide a personal opinion. Across the grades, and even across the content areas, students need to develop the skill of grounding their responses in evidence from the text. Requiring students to use evidence can and should occur during oral discussions with read aloud in the youngest grades and continue across all grades and content areas. This is a sharp departure from much current practice where the focus is commonly to relate the text to yourself in narrative expressive pieces where students share their views on various topics. Most college and workplace writing requires evidence. Ability to cite evidence differentiates strong from weak student performance on NAEP Evidence is a major emphasis of the ELA Standards: Reading Standard 1, Writing Standard 9, Speaking and Listening standards 2, 3 and 4, all focus on the gathering, evaluating and presenting of evidence from text. Being able to locate and deploy evidence are hallmarks of strong readers and writers

Shift #3 Regular Practice with Complex Text and its Academic Language What students can read, in terms of complexity is greatest predictor of success in college (ACT study). Standards include a staircase of increasing text complexity from elementary through high school. Standards also focus on building general academic vocabulary so critical to comprehension. Research that informed the development of the Standards revealed that there is a significant gap in the complexity of what students read by the end of high school and what they are required to read in both college and careers – 4 years! In a study done by ACT in 2006, it was found that the complexity level of what students read at each grade level has dropped 4 years in the last half of the 20th century (and has remained the same in the last decade.) The academic language of informational text is different than narrative literature. Exposing students to this enhances the breadth of their academic language, lack of this exposure Gap between complexity of college and high school texts is huge. What students can read, in terms of complexity is greatest predictor of success in college (ACT study). Too many students are reading at too low a level. (<50% of graduates can read sufficiently complex texts). Standards include a staircase of increasing text complexity from elementary through high school. Standards also focus on building general academic vocabulary so critical to comprehension

What are the Features of Complex Text? Density of information Unfamiliar settings, topics or events Complex sentences Uncommon vocabulary Longer paragraphs Complex text contains any and all combinations of these features in many combinations. The complexity level is determined by both quantitative and qualitative measures. The details of text complexity are well described in Appendix A of the Standards, one of the supplemental readings offered with this module. New tools have been developed since the Standards were developed to help determine qualitative text complexity. Those materials are available on www.achievethecore.org Students who struggle with reading almost always have gaps in their vocabulary and their ability to deal with more complex sentence structures. This too is well documented in research. Subtle and/or frequent transitions Multiple and/or subtle themes and purposes Density of information Unfamiliar settings, topics or events Lack of repetition, overlap or similarity in words and sentences Complex sentences Uncommon vocabulary Lack of words, sentences or paragraphs that review or pull things together for the student Longer paragraphs Any text structure which is less narrative and/or mixes structures

Changes in the Classroom… Students are: Doing more reading on their own Getting a great deal of information from the text Using note-taking organizers, question charts, prompt sheets Engaging in discussion around text read Backing up responses to questions with evidence

Changes in the Classroom… Teachers are: Providing students with consistent, explicit writing instruction • Providing opportunities for students to write from multiple sources about a single topic Engaging students in more complex texts with scaffolding Engaging students in rigorous conversations

What is the District Leader’s Role and Responsibilities? Provide schools the information, professional learning, and resources to support transition to College and Career Readiness. Ensure alignment of policies and structures to support transition. Stay focused and ON MESSAGE!

What is the Principal’s Role and Responsibilities? Provide teachers the information, professional learning, and resources to support transition to College and Career Readiness. Ensure alignment of policies and structures to support transition. Stay focused and ON MESSAGE!

How? Professional Learning is ESSENTIAL Instructionally focused on CCRS Teachers must work in Community (PLCs) Provide time for collaboration

"Leadership effects on student learning occur largely because leadership strengthens professional community; teachers engagement in professional community, in turn, fosters the use of instructional practices that are associated with student achievement." Investigating the Links to Improved Student Learning: Executive Summary of Research Findings, July 2010, p. 10.

Resources for School Based Professional Learning

How? Connect the pieces Educate Alabama – PLPs CIP RTI Deliberate use of data Formative assessments Benchmark assessments High Stakes tests Other

How? INSPIRE! Students Teachers Parents and families Community business and government

Questions?

Contact Information Dr. Julie Hannah, jhannah@alsde.edu Ms. Cindy Freeman, cfreeman@alsde.edu Mrs. Pam Higgins, phiggins@alsde.edu