Introducing volunteers to ccrs Introduce myself—if the group is small, go around and introduce yourself Burgen Young, Instructional Manager, byoung@mnliteracy.org

Agenda What do we know about CCRS? Introducing the CCRS shifts Introducing Text Complexity Introducing Citing Evidence Introducing Building Knowledge Future Plans

What roles do your volunteers have? Classroom assistant? One on one tutor? (subject?) Instructor? Other? The role they have affects how much CCRS they need to be comfortable with. We’ll look at a handout a made with classroom assistants in mind and they can also get mentoring from the classroom teacher. Instructors need to be able to work more actively with the standards.

Please rate your comfort level with CCRS 1—What is CCRS? 2—I’ve heard people talking about it 3—I know the CCRS shifts and/or overall goals of the CCRS 4—I am familiar with some of the CCRS standards and what implementation can look like 5—I am mentoring others in CCRS implementation

Has anyone already introduced volunteers to the CCRS?

CCRS= College and Career Readiness Standards If you are new to the CCRS, this will serve as an introduction, and if you are ready to introduce volunteers to the CCRS, this is one example of how you might do that…these slides are from presentations I have done for volunteers at FTK and STR.

Adult Basic Education is the first step towards many pathways. Bachelor’s degree Adult Basic Education is the first step towards many pathways. Professional Certificate A promotion Family education and parenting Job Retention First some background ideas to think about. I like to start with explaining why the standards have value. ABE is not a final destination. Adults come to our programming because they want to achieve more as community members, parents, employees, and citizens. Civic Engagement Employment ABE

Implementing the College and Career Readiness standards helps ABE students be ready for whatever is next.

ABE Professional Certificate A promotion Family literacy and education Job Retention Civic Engagement Employment ABE can be so much more than GED test prep and life skills instruction. The CCRS describe the academic and language skills (along with some digital literacy skills) students need to pursue their long term goals. I’ve found CCRS lessons to be very engaging and respectful of students as adults who can engage critical thinking, analysis, and debate around issues that matter to them. For programs that already implementing the CCRS, what benefits have you noticed? GED life skills academic skills English language literacy digital literacy soft skills ABE

What’s in the “Blue Book”? Does anyone know what is in the book?

College and Career Readiness Math Number and Operations The Number System Fractions Ratios and Proportional Relationships Algebra Expressions and Equations Functions Geometry Measurement and Data Statistic and Probability English Language Arts (ELA) Reading Writing Speaking and Listening Language (=grammar)

The CCRS Shifts are a great starting point. The shifts are guiding principles that are throughout the standards. Three for math and three for English Language Arts (ELA). By learning and incorporating the shifts, you automatically work with multiple CCR Standards.

English Language Arts Shifts Math Shifts Complexity Evidence Knowledge Focus Coherence Rigor Pass out the 3 shifts handout and participants can read and turn and talk about how they might explain the shifts to a volunteer classroom assistant where a teacher is beginning to make these shifts, or to a math teacher so they can better prepare students for the types of questions on the GED math test.

Introducing text complexity

The CCR Standards require students to read for deep levels of comprehension in level appropriate complex texts.

The complexity of text that students can read is the greatest predictor of success in college (ACT study).

Finding the Right Level Text I introduce the process as a way to find a text that is a good match for learners. We want to find texts that are challenging enough that learners grow in their reading abilities, but not overly frustrating and this process can help us do that. Read over the steps and see if anything isn’t clear. How might you share this with your volunteers and what might you ask them to do with it?

Matching Readers and Texts This is another exercise to reflect on how to choose texts and the tasks you might ask learners to do with a complex text. All the suggested tasks work with one or more ELA standard, though I don’t usually mention that until after the exercise to make it a gentle introduction to some of the standards.

Introducing Evidence

Questions that Inspire Readers Rather than focusing on the need for students to cite evidence, this handout beings with an engaging reason to ask students to do so—the questions that require students to read and understand texts also are engaging ones. How might you introduce this idea to volunteers? Which volunteers would be interested in learning about this process to generate engaging questions?

Revising a Question Set Before: Do you think Goldilocks is ethical? After: Is Goldilocks ethical? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.

For Example… How many bears were there? The bears eat porridge. Have you ever had porridge? What happens when Goldilocks sits in the chairs? Who has the smallest bed? What happens after Goldilocks falls asleep? Do you like this story? Why or why not?

For Example… How many bears were there? Why does Goldilocks go in the bears’ home? The bears eat porridge. Have you ever had porridge? Why does Goldilocks eat the bears’ breakfast? What happens when Goldilocks sits in the chairs? Who has the smallest bed? Why does Goldilocks sleep in the bears’ beds? What happens after Goldilocks falls asleep? Do you like this story? Why or why not? What is the lesson in this story? What ideas in the story show that this is the lesson?

Introducing Building Knowledge

Life Skills Focus Food Transportation Money Housing Health Academic Focus The digestive system Fuel sources for cars Economic systems Gentrification Disease prevention

How do we build knowledge? Teacher Centered Moves T summarizes the text prior to reading T pre-teaches all new vocabulary prior to reading T pauses to paraphrase the text as T reads aloud T provides answers to questions when students struggle to respond Text Centered Moves T asks students to make predictions about the text based on text features and graphics T asks students to use textual clues to define new words T pauses and asks students to paraphrase as T reads aloud T directs students to key details in the text when they struggle to respond

Some undeveloped ideas… Staying in the “learning zone,” i.e. productive struggle Best practices that increase student learning: wait time, using routines to build student independence Engaging topics to dig in to with adult learners

Future Plans Multi-year ESL Volunteer Curriculum revision/rewrite project is underway Possible Spring Tutoring Refresher session on the third ELA shift—Building Knowledge Collaboration with literacy council training department to add CCRS intro to volunteer preservice training What’s your next step?