Before our next Professional Development Day on January 20, 2012, you will need to do the following:
Go to your NC Education site, and use the login and password you received from your administrator on September 23rd (the first Early Release day). It is the same login and password for NC FALCON.
We viewed this module together, but you must “view” it through your account by clicking on all the material to receive your certificate. If you need help finding this module and figuring out how to get to your certificate, please read the following directions. These will help you login, find the module, go through the information, and print your certificate.
Remember to print two; one for the Central Office and the other for your records. You need to hold all your certificates for the Central Office together until we are done with our training. You will send them to Teresa Smeeks after our final PD day.
2. Familiarize yourself with the Essential Standards in the Arts
All the teachers in the county are required to print out the Essential Standards and related materials for their subject areas before our next Professional Development day.
As we discussed on the 31st, I have requested that each of you have a notebook with the new Essential Standards and the Crosswalks and Unpacking Documents for your subject area and grade levels. You will receive your notebooks with these materials shortly. If you would like to go ahead and print the information on your own, please let me know so I do not unnecessarily send you a notebook when you don’t need it.
You will need to look over these materials when you receive your notebook. Make sure you bring this notebook with you to our upcoming Professional Development days.
*Optional* For more information, read an article on Myths about the Common Core
You do not have to read this, but I included it if you are interested. There’s an interesting article by Robert Rothman printed by Harvard Education Press that debunks some popular myths about the Common Core.
3. Participation
You will need to post a significant/meaningful comment about the Essential Standards in your subject area to this blog post. For example: you can comment on items specifically from the “Understanding the Standards” module, something you found interesting about the Essential Standards and their related materials, changes you see in these and how they will affect our programming, an interesting feature about Rothman’s article, etc.
If you’ve forgotten how to post a comment, please refer to these directions.
Please let me know if you need any assistance. I really enjoyed our collaboration and discussions on our Professional Development day together in October, and I’m looking forward to continuing them digitally with all of you. I also greatly appreciate all the time and energy you have put into our training.
I think these standards make more sense and are much easier to understand and apply.
ReplyDeleteHopefully this process will help us all organize our curriculm to become better teachers. My opinion is still unclear at this point, but having these workshops will help.
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with the standards but in order to teach them correctly and congruently, we have to have an equal teaching structure in place for k-12. I worry that some will again be left behind! I think with standard 6 we have the cart in front of the horse. Before you tell methat we are testing we need to have rules and guidelines in place and equalitythroughout the state for true assessment to be of value.
ReplyDeleteI really love what Babs has to say about the necessity that we align our curriculum vertically. I think this is a great opportunity for us to really collaborate and make our programs even more effective. I have e-mailed NCDPI's arts education consultant with our question about standardized testing in the arts and waivers for more performance based assessments. I heard back from her today that she was uncertain and sent my e-mail to another colleague. I will forward the answer I receive to you guys over e-mail as soon as I get it. I can't wait to collaborate with you guys more.
ReplyDeleteWow! This is so much to cover! I'm a bit overwhelmed to say the least. So far, I like the way the standards are organized. For the most part they appear to be in line with the NCSCOS that we've all been a part of for all these years. I'm overwhelemed to think about the standardized testing. I too feel like this will not be successful unless we are all given the same opportunities. I see classes for 35 or 40 minutes per week. That is unless there is a field trip or a holiday or a day off. Generally Monday classes and Friday classes are usually not where the other classes are because so many days out of school are either a Monday or a Friday. I know that all of this testing talk is in the very early stages, so hopefully it will all be made clear in the near future. I REALLY like that we will all be able to work together on this!!
ReplyDeleteI like the way the new standards are organized. I think they are much clearer. I agree with Babs in that we do need to vertically align our curriculum. I also agree with Amy about the standardized testing being a bit unfair. Unless students have the same time to recieve the same instruction, how can they be given the same test?
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