Teaching the Core - A Must Read for Anyone Trying to Understand the ELA Standards

Teaching the Core is an amazing site! Not only ELA teachers, but history, science, and math teachers will also find this helpful as we integrate the literacy standards into our schools. It gives understanding and real meaning to the Common Core Standards for reading and writing.


Teaching the Core is created by Dave Stuart Jr. He teaches 9th grade World History and English in Cedar Springs, Michigan. It is obvious as you look through his blog that he truly lives life with passion. I can see why he loves the profession!

The core reason I put hours into this site is because I want students to flourish. This is why I want to learn about the Common Core State Standards -- not because I'm afraid of them or think my job depends on knowing them, but because I think they have something to teach me and my fellow open-minded educators.

Dave has done an amazing job of unpacking the standards! He is halfway through writing posts about each Common Core anchor standard. You can find them linked to his CCSS overview page that is located in the menu bar. This may be one of the best resources I have found for understanding these standards without spending hours for each one. He is clear and makes the standards real. Wonderful!


If you are new to the Common Core, Dave has created a Common Core 101 page. This is located as a drop down menu in the menu bar, beneath "CCSS overview". This is a wonderful collection of resources if you are feeling overwhelmed.


Dave brings all of this back to the classroom in his "class purpose" post, in which he discusses some of the core ideas that shape my approach to teaching. I love his statement, "We are about becoming better readers, writers, thinkers, and people."


As Dave said: 

Look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." This is a quote from the Bible, and I like to use it to remind myself that teaching is about service, it is about attending to the needs of others. A teacher says, "Even though I know something, that's not enough; I want to help someone else know it, too."

This post would not be complete without a welcome to baby Laura that was born into the Stuart family on July 19, 2012. 


CONGRATULATIONS!

CCSS Math - A Wonderful Collection of Resources for Every Standard

CCSS Math is an amazing resource for teachers, and it continues to get better every day. Organized for teachers by standard with an amazing amount of resources on every page.


Jonathan Lillie has created this site as a resource for teachers. Jonathan has been teaching high school math for seven years. He gives a lot of credit to his wife for all of her support.


This site is a collection of math resources from across the internet. It includes videos, lessons, interactive practice and other resources all sorted by standard.


The great part of all of this, is that it will only get better. Teachers can suggest their own resources for each standard by leaving comments on the specific standard's page. I can see this snowballing into an amazing collection.


Jonathan is also creating a place where resources can be rated to allow the best to shine through. This will be a huge time saver for teachers when they are looking for the best lessons and resources for their students.


When you get to the site, simply click on your grade or for high school, your strand. You can then click on the individual standard to get a huge list of resources. It really is quite amazing how much is already out there. I am excited to have a direct link to resources.


Jonathan gets support for this project from The Hall County School System in Georgia, most notably Dr. Turpin (technology), Melissa Stewart (math specialist) and Dr. Barron (Associate Superintendent for Human Resources) form central office. Also, his principal, his department head, Joe Gheesling, Bob Woodworth and North Hall High School, who give their support.


Jonathan has been working with the Georgia Department of Education, Hall County and 5 other counties, the Shell Centre (University of Nottingham, England) and Dr. Shannon from University of California Berkeley on the Mathematics Design Collaborative. This project is helping Georgia's math teachers adjust to Common Core Standards while raising student achievement using Formative Assessment Lessons (FALs). These lessons are extremely well designed and force students to think mathematically.

"I believe that the most valuable asset this country has is the minds of its people." - Jonathan

Grade6Geometry - A great place for teachers, parents, and students

Grade6Geometry is a great example of a classroom wiki for everyone. Teachers, students, and parents can find helpful information to help them understand the Common Core standards.

Mary Dooms has 11 years of experience and teaches 6th grade math. Mary's site is very specific to her grade and subject and yet has great ideas for everyone. She provides a great example of a class wiki and I love her integration of GeoGebra into her class. Mary understands that not all schools have the funds or resources to implement the Common Core and this is her way to pay it forward. I love this!

On this site we can find extensive GeoGebra applets. If you have ever wanted to play with GeoGebra or even if you have found it useful in the past, you are bound to learn something new in this collection. They all come with a great handout that encourages experimentation and discovery. You will notice that they are Common Core aligned and very impressive. I strongly encourage you to take a look! 


There are learning targets and assessment examples included for this Geometry Unit. It is a great place to find your focus and wonderful for students to understand what is expected of them. You will also notice that Mary has set up a sign up for her knowledge checks. Free for anyone, just not the kids :)


There are also other units under construction at her wiki. Ratios and Proportions already has some great stuff included and I absolutely love her 3 acts lesson How Fast is Dad Driving? 


Take a look around, but come back for more. Mary is sure to continue to be a great resource for the Common Core. 

Not Another History Teacher - Innovation You Must See

This post took me forever to write! Even though I teach math, there are so many great ideas and tools on this blog, I kept getting distracted. I love incorporating technology into my classroom and found her blog to be a wealth of useful resources. I forwarded it to our history teacher as well, we are creating cross-curricular lessons and I can see this a a wealth of ideas and projects.

The blog; Not Another History Teacher comes to us from Melissa Seideman, a veteran of five years. She currently teaches 11 and 12th grade US history, government, and AP Government while creating this awesome blog.

Melissa has a great list of Common Core resources for history teachers. "US History Websites with the Common Core" is an excellent post that correctly portrays the real implication of the Math and ELA Common Core for history teachers:

These standards are not intended to drive history and other subjects away from the curriculum, but they are designed to encourage our students to be critical readers who can apply the knowledge they learned.

I am impressed with her technology posts as well. Whether or not you teach history you absolutely must check them out! She has everything technology from classroom management, to presentations, to giving students a bird's eye view of historical locations. She is using everything from desktops and laptops, to tablets and cellphones. She keeps her students involved and you can tell that she loves it.


While checking out her site I found her "About Me" page. Wow. Melissa has presented Digital Storytelling Presentation at the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) Conference in December, 2011. Melissa was a teacher featured on the "The classroom of the Future" panal at Social Media Week in New York City, February 2012 and was featured in the two magazines. The first,"It will be Cool to Text + Tweet in Class Soon" can be found in Differences Magazine,  and the second, "The Classsroom of the Future" in the Huffington Post. She is also presenting on mobile devises in the classroom at the National Council for the Social Studies Conference in Washington D.C. this coming November. 


But above all that you can tell she lives by the quote, "Be the change you want to see in the world."


You can find Melissa every Monday night at 7 pm EST on #sschat on twitter discussing topics related to social studies. Please feel free to join her there!

The Common Core Conversation - A Great Place to Start

I love teacher created resources, especially since we are the ones in the classrooms, but the idea of beginning conversations is awesome!

The Common Core Conversation comes to us from Kristina A. Holzweiss, The Laptop Lieberrian. She teaches 6th, 7th, and 8th grade library. Kristina has just completed her 17th year and she would tell you to please pass on your suggestions. 

My hope is that this becomes the first place where educators go to find information about the Common Core Standards.

What a great idea. There are no right or wrong answers right now concerning the Common Core, but there are hypotheses and guesses. We are all trying our best to understand. And conversations are helping us all to process this change.  

On this site you will find a great collection of content area resources for everything from math and ELA to Art and ESL. It is one of the few sites I have seen that does a great job of including all the content areas. 


Be careful not to miss the general resources page also found under the content area resources tab. It is an impressive collection of resources for gaining Common Core knowledge.

I really appreciate the State Initiatives tab. This is the only interactive map that hyperlinks to the Common Core Initiatives of each state. I know so many states have great resources, and it is a great way to see what all the states are doing. I really appreciate being able to compare their websites and collections in one organized place.


This collection of resources will be a great conversation starter. You can submit your website for the site as well, and it will be great to have a common place for all the resources we find. The idea of a conversation is empowering. I want to be part of this converstation and I want to be included. Thank you for this opportunity to share.


Please let Kristina know what you think of her site here. It is obvious that she wants to help teachers organize Common Core resources and I am sure she would love your feedback!

Achieve the Core - A Collection for Understanding

AchievetheCore.com

Achieve the Core is a great tool to help teachers understand the Common Core. I love the fact that they deal with ELA/Literacy and Mathematics, giving teachers a common tool.

This site gives credit to the teachers that are trying to implement the common core and recognize that the Common Core is hard work. For that reason a lot of voice is given to teachers.

If you are just beginning to look at the standards and this site you may begin by looking as the How to Start section on the Steal these Tools page. There is a Standards Overview PowerPoint that you may find helpful to get you started.

Before you leave the site, be sure to jump over to the By Teachers for Teachers page to get a dose of inspiration! There are definitely some great reads in the bunch.

What is Common Core?

Nothing brings up emotion in the teaching world like the topic of the Common Core State Standards. Recently the internet is aglow with the topic.

We all agree that there is room for improvement in education in our country. But how that is to be done is up for debate. And that debate can be found online everywhere.

But the bottom line is that we, as teachers, will be judged by the new assessments. Whether from PARCC or Smarter Balanced, they are coming!

This site is a collection of resources created by teachers that will help teachers understand and teach the Common Core State Standards.

This is the mission statement posted on the main Common Core State Standards Initiative website:

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

As you can see the mission statement is a tall order, but really? I really want to know, how do I do that? We will be featuring websites created by teachers full of resources to help us understand, resources to help us teach, and resources to help us understand the "2014" assessments.

Please take a minute to subscribe to this site to get the latest and best resources sent right to your e-mail.

If you have a resource that you would like featured on this site, please do not hesitate to contact me.