The Common Core State Standards: An Opportunity to Enhance Formative Assessment in History/Social Studies Classrooms

This article discusses the opportunity that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) present for enhancing formative assessment (FA) in history and social studies classrooms. There is evidence that FA can enhance learning for students if implemented well. Unfortunately, teachers continue to be challenged in implementing FA in their classrooms. We examined reading standards for literacy in history and social studies in lesson plans created by preservice teachers in order to discuss opportunities presented by the CCSS for enhancing FA.     

Career readiness: An analysis of text complexity for occupational reading materials

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the broader college and career readiness agenda encourage educators, researchers, and other stakeholders to focus on preparing students for life after high school. A key emphasis is literacy, as the ability to read and comprehend written language is critical to success in college and careers. Understanding the level of reading comprehension needed for college and careers has important instructional implications. This study examined text complexity levels of various career texts using the Reading Maturity Metric and compared them to expectations in the CCSS. Text samples were selected for jobs from the five job zones in the Occupational Information Network database. Text complexity demands for all careers were generally in the CCSS range of college and career readiness and increased as job zone and required preparation increased. Results could provide specific career-related targets to make the CCSS reading requirements more relevant for students.     

Questioning reform in the standards movement: professional development and implementation of common core across the rural South

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were adopted in an effort to create a consistent set of standards across schools, districts, and states in order to ensure equality of educational opportunities for all students in the country. Educational reform through standardization implies that across thousands of miles and millions of students, individual classroom teachers are able to create equitable instruction based on policy and curriculum mandates. For such reform efforts to be successful, standards must be implemented with fidelity, thoroughness, and strong support from stakeholders. The present study examines the role of teacher preparation for CCSS implementation, notably in rural and economically depressed districts in the American South. Teachers were surveyed about their CCSS professional development experiences and needs, CCSS instructional and assessment practices, and perceptions of student learning related to new standards. The analysis reveals that teachers do not feel fully prepared to teach according to CCSS, and highlights areas of professional development where districts failed to support effective teacher implementation. Findings from this study illustrate inequitable professional development for teachers and provide implications for professional development types, content, and quality that teachers perceive as essential for CCSS success.     

Alignment: Its Role in Standards-Based Reform and Prospects for the Common Core

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) of 2010 represent a new chapter in the 25-year history of standards-based reforms (SBR). The CCSS attempts to bring the system back to the principles of its founding—more rigorous, focused, academic content and performance expectations collectively embraced by the nation. The new standards depart significantly from existing practice, especially in their high level of cognitive demand, topical range, and curricular sequencing. In this article, we explore what decades of experience have shown about alignment to standards. Most conceive of alignment as a relatively simple technical task of matching curriculum and other tools to the standards. This is a necessary, but only a first, step, and one that is more complex than often imagined. To achieve the far-reaching institutional changes envisioned by SBR, additional and intensive work is necessary to align system incentives, as well as classroom instruction.     

Developing and assessing educator beliefs about the common core

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) potentially shifts the way US schools approach teaching and learning. Research suggests that it is important to understand how educators view the CCSS and how they believe the CCSS may impact their practice. We developed and tested an instrument to investigate educator beliefs about the implementation of CCSS. We collected data from two samples of educators regarding their beliefs about the CCSS in mid-size school districts in California that had begun to introduce the CCSS. Our results indicate that the instrument consistently measured three interrelated, yet distinct, sub-constructs of educator beliefs about the CCSS implementation and that the sub-constructs are statistically significantly associated with trust, professional knowledge, and the pattern of CCSS-related professional interaction.     

美国“州共同核心标准”实施中的问题及其原因分析

“州共同核心标准”的实施是美国教育标准化运动的又一步推进。在联邦政府的财政支持下,这一标准得到大部分州的积极响应并得以实施;然而,其在推行过程中,也面·临着财政困难、相关教育人士的质疑以及部分父母和教师的反对等问题。这些问题背后的原因包括教育分权体制的深远影响、人们对标准化运动成效的质疑以及对与标准挂钩的评价体制的反对。     

New structures of power and regulation within ‘distributed’ education policy – the example of the US Common Core State Standards Initiative

Abstract

This article focuses on the growing development towards new forms of ‘distributed’ governance within current large-scale educational reforms. The emphasis is on so-called ‘governance through standards’ as a transformative reform complex which manifests itself in a simultaneous process of regulative destabilisation and (global) reconstruction of policy control. This newly emerging regulative policy ‘ensemble’ is found to be directly related to the growing collaborative activity of cross-field networks between governmental, non-governmental and private actors. Empirically, this article refers to the so-called Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Initiative which has fundamentally reshaped US education policy since 2001. The initiative comprised the negotiation, implementation and controlling of supra-state core skill standards for K-12 education as the benchmark for other regulating instruments such as assessments, monitoring and teacher training. In the context of the CCSS, the aforementioned new structures of regulation can then be located within an entrepreneurial alliance around the non-profit organisation Achieve, Inc. Through its function as a core policy network manager, Achieve generated simultaneous practices of collaboration and distinction, discourse initiation and (invisible) norm stabilisation.     

英文报刊对提高学生英语阅读能力的作用的研究

本文从《普通高中英语课程标准》对高中英语阅读的要求谈起,阐述了英文报刊对提高学生英语阅读能力的积极意义和显著的作用以及在英语阅读教学中引入英文报刊值得注意的几个问题。力求最大程度地发挥英文报刊作为英语辅助教学手段在提高学生英语阅读能力的作用。     

Using the Text Structures of Information Books to Teach Writing in the Primary Grades

Teaching children in the primary grades the text structures and features used by authors of information text has been shown to improve comprehension of information texts and provide the scaffolding and support these children need in order to write their own information texts. As teachers implement the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards (CCSS), they will need support and training on how to meet these increased curricular demands. In this article, we describe how children’s information books can be used as exemplars of well-structured text models to teach young students how to write selected discourse patterns required in the CCSS. As children in the primary grades learn to recognize and use well-structured example information texts as models for their own writing, they will be better prepared to deal with less well-structured, more complex text examples in their reading and writing in the years to come.     

我国本科课程教学质量怎么样?——基于“中国大学生学习与发展追踪研究”的十年探索

课程教学是大学促进学生发展、回应国家人才培养需求最核心的教育活动。当前高等教育领域试图通过学生调查呈现学生视角下大学课程教学质量的全貌。本文梳理现有以学生调查为途径的大学课程教学质量评价模式发现,由于调查目的、内容、程序等方面存在差异,并非所有学生调查都符合教育的价值取向并充分反映大学课程教学质量的内涵。本文进一步借助“以学为本”大学课程教学质量评价框架,采用“中国大学生学习与发展追踪研究(CCSS)”多年数据,构建涵盖高阶认知能力、问题解决能力、读写能力、主动学习、生生互动、课堂讲授、师生互动和在线教学8个指标的本科课程教学质量评价指标体系,分析了2011至2018年我国本科院校课程教学质量的总体水平和变化趋势。     

Techies,the Tea Party,and the Race to the Top: The Rise of the New Upper-Middle Class and Tensions in the Rightist Politics of Federal Education Reform

Abstract

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and their associated high-stakes testing are key parts of the federal Race to the Top (RTTT) initiative. There has been considerable resistance to both CCSS and related testing, particularly from conservative actors. This resistance suggests that CCSS has caused substantial tension within the conservative alliance that originally coalesced around No Child Left Behind (NCLB). This article examines the fracturing of the NCLB alliance in response to RTTT and CCSS.     

统编语文教材课外阅读实施策略研究

随着课程改革的进一步深化,课外阅读越来越受到重视,但在语文教材中一直未能得到有效落实。统编教材倡导把课外阅读纳入教学计划,进一步明确了课标落实的指向。本文从统编教材的结构与功能切入,把握知识与能力要点对接“课外阅读”;兼顾读书内容与方法两大核心,落实“课外阅读”;开展组织与评价活动,持续“课外阅读”。     

美国中小学共同核心标准的建立及探析

为帮助学生高中毕业前获得进入大学或就业前必备的知识和能力,美国于2010年6月正式颁布首份中小学统一课程标准——共同核心标准。该标准立足"八性",结构清晰、知识系统连贯、重视基础知识和学生理解,但在推行政策、学科内外知识联系、部分内容完整性和评价体系上受到质疑。其蕴含的教育改革经验是我国课程改革发展的有效借鉴。     

探索学科核心素养下的高中英语整本书阅读教学

随着新课标的推行,各学科的教学任务也越发沉重。高中英语也在培养学生“听、说、读、写”四项基本能力的基础上,加入了对学生核心素养的教学要求。这其中整本书阅读就是非常重要的一种方法。本文针对高中英语整本书阅读的教学方法进行讨论,分析其重要性,并提出了在教学实践中落实该方法的建议。     

Engaging Minds in the Common Core: Integrating Standards for Student Engagement

With the implementation of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) many teachers continue to search for ways to engage students in the learning process while meeting the rigorous demands of the standards. Researchers suggest that by providing opportunities for higher order thinking, student choice, and creative ways to showcase knowledge, students will find engagement and motivation in the classroom. Many teachers of adolescent students struggle with ways to integrate these approaches while meeting the standards. The purpose of this article is to provide examples of engaging literacy strategies that focus on the Common Core State Standards for middle and high school students.     

心理学视角下的英语阅读教学模式探析

英语阅读教学模式决定了阅读的效率。本文从心理学的视角阐述了英语阅读理解过程的复杂性,对阅读理解的心理过程(包括初级感知阶段、句子结构分析与释义阶段、语篇理解阶段和信息存储与提取等阶段)进行了分析,指出阅读理解依赖于背景知识概念能力和处理策略的相互作用,并提出了基于心理语言学理论的新的大学英语阅读教学模式。     

Raising Literacy Attainments in the Early Years: the impact of instructional psychology

The National Literacy Strategy (DfEE, 1998) aims to raise literacy standards by 2002. The expectation is that 80% of Year 6 children will achieve Level 4 or above within the National Curriculum. This is seen to represent ‘zero tolerance of failure’. However, another interpretation of ‘zero tolerance of failure’ is that all children, including the 20% who are predicted to experience difficulties, will reach ageand skill‐appropriate targets in reading. This is the goal adopted for the Early Reading Research (ERR) reported in this article.

The aims of the ERR are to investigate: (i) whether overall reading standards can be improved and (ii) the extent to which reading difficulties can be prevented. Despite all the recent research into phonological awareness and its relationship to reading, there has been very little research into how phonological skills are taught within a broader literacy framework to enable children both to increase their attainments and to prevent the occurrence of problems in learning to read. The ERR is a 2‐year study following a sample of 433 children as they progress from reception into Year 1.

This article reviews recent psychological research on teaching reading, discusses the significance of instructional psychology and reports on the first year of the research when children were in six experimental reception classes implementing the ERR reading framework or six comparison schools following their usual approaches for teaching reading. The experimental group made considerably greater gains in reading on all but one of the assessment measures taken and demonstrated that the incidence of reading difficulties can be reduced quite dramatically, while at the same time raising the attainments of higher achieving pupils.     

小学读经校本课程开发存在的问题与对策

近些年来,在小学阶段结合校本课程开展读经教育的热潮席卷全国,呈现出星火燎原之势,影响深远.这场读经教育运动中也暴露出师资严重匮乏、课程设置随意性大、教材内容选择缺乏科学标准以及教学方法简单机械等问题.本文在分析读经教育存在问题的基础上,结合国内小学校本课程建设的实际情况,提出较为科学合理的解决策略,以期能促进儿童读经教育的健康发展.     

“Don’t Sell Me the Enemy’s Literature”: A Self-Study of Teaching Literature in Politically Fraught Contexts

This article describes a self-study pursuant to a clash between a lecturer and a student concerning the teaching of literature in a politically fraught context. The learning group is composed of Arab and Jewish teachers at a college in northern Israel. The work read by the group expresses a Palestinian perspective. The incident, discussed with reference to the concepts of ethical reading and in-between space, is explained against the background of the lecturer’s professional views and the complexity of teaching literature in a polarized and conflicted society. Analysis of the incident, accompanied by a look at the professional literature, reveals the lecturer’s blind spots as well as the complexity of the situation in which she was acting. Details of the case and the process of its interpretation may serve to enrich the perspectives of literature teacher educators who believe in ethical reading and in constructing an in-between space in their lessons, providing them with insights regarding teaching in contexts fraught with cultural tensions.     

Rethinking role play in the Reception class

How to monitor and raise standards of educational attainment generally were issues addressed by the British Government in 1988 when the National Curriculum was introduced into all state‐funded primary schools in England and Wales: ‘There is every reason for optimism that in providing a sound, sufficiently detailed framework over the next decade the National Curriculum will give children and teachers much needed help in achieving higher standards.’ This paper assesses the value of looking closely at successive reading scores of cohorts of children in order to monitor reading attainments over time. The reading attainments of seven cohorts of Year 2 children from five randomly selected primary schools within one local education authority (LEA) (N = 1,329) are analysed to see if standards of literacy have changed since the introduction of the National Curriculum in 1989. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection were used in this cross‐sectional study. The reading attainments of each of the seven cohorts of Year 2 children, as measured by the are presented. Headteacher perceptions of the effects of the National Curriculum on the teaching and learning of reading in their schools were collected through interviews. Examination of the means of the standardized comprehension scores for each cohort reveals no statistically significant differences in attainment between any two cohorts. It was noted that the distribution of the reading scores was skewed towards underachievement in all seven cohorts. The relative stability in reading attainments contrasts with the aspiration that the introduction of the National Curriculum would raise standards. Headteachers saw this stability as the result of key stage 1 teachers working at an intense rate to safeguard the teaching and learning of reading against the pressures exerted by the introduction of the National Curriculum and assessment procedures.