Pearson Professional Development –Supporting the Effective Implementation of the Common Core

The following presentation details Pearson’s philosophy and continuum of support for districts implementing the Common Core.

One of the pillars of the Common Core is its emphasis on college and career readiness. The idea of college and career ready students has long been the hallmark of 21st century education. All students, and therefore, all schools, districts and states will be expected to demonstrate progress towards college and career readiness beginning in 2014-2015.

States can develop their own college and career ready standards, or choose, as 46 states have done, to join the Common Core State Standards.

Although the development and widespread adoption by states of the CCSS mark a significant milestone in American education, successful implementation is necessary if students across the country are to realize the benefits.

— National Governors Association, Issue Brief, October 2012

The Common Core State Standards are a fundamental first step toward ensuring that children receive the best possible education no matter where they live across the country.

— Council of Chief State School Officers 2012

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The Pearson difference — Common Core Professional Development that provides the fundamental building blocks of knowledge and skills that are necessary to help teachers make the instructional shifts that will lead to improved student performance and college and career readiness.

College and Career Readiness

Content standards – fewer, deeper, more rigorous

Student standards of performance

- Mathematical Practice

- College and Career competencies

Next Generation Assessments

The application of knowledge — student performance in new and unrehearsed situations— as a true measure of understanding

The necessity for new instructional approaches

The relationship between implementation of the Common Core in the classroom and “educator effectiveness” evaluations

What’s easy to see in the standards: English Language Arts

• An emphasis on increasing text complexity such as levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands; word frequency and sentence length; students' knowledge, motivation and interests

• An increasing focus on informational texts (non-fiction) over literature

• A focus on argumentation

• Standards for social studies, science and technical subjects that stress “disciplinary literacy” – the ability to think and write like an historian or scientist

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The Pearson difference — Common Core Professional Development that provides the fundamental building blocks of knowledge and skills that are necessary to help teachers make the instructional shifts that will lead to improved student performance and college and career readiness.

College and Career Readiness

Content standards – fewer, deeper, more rigorous

Student standards of performance

- Mathematical Practice

- College and Career competencies

Next Generation Assessments

The application of knowledge — student performance in new and unrehearsed situations— as a true measure of understanding

The necessity for new instructional approaches

The relationship between implementation of the Common Core in the classroom and “educator effectiveness” evaluations

What’s easy to see in the standards: Mathematics

• New content standards – fewer, deeper, more rigorous

• Focused topics at each grade and embedded “coherence” – the progression of content across grades

• Significant content shifts from grade-to-grade

English Language Arts Standards include:

College and Career Competencies

• Demonstrate Independence

• Build Strong Content Knowledge

• Respond to the varying demand of audience, task, purpose and discipline

• Comprehend as well as critique

• Value evidence

• Use technology and digital media strategically and capably

• Come to understand other perspectives and cultures

Both sets of content standards further

include principles that define the desired

proficiencies, competencies and

academic behaviors of college and

career-ready students.

English Language Arts Standards include:

College and Career Competencies

• Demonstrate Independence

• Build Strong Content Knowledge

• Respond to the varying demand of audience, task, purpose and discipline

• Comprehend as well as critique

• Value evidence

• Use technology and digital media strategically and capably

• Come to understand other perspectives and cultures

Mathematics Standards include:

The 8 Mathematical Practices

• Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them

• Reason abstractly and quantitatively

• Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others

• Model with math

• Use appropriate tools strategically

• Attend to precision

• Look for and make use of structure

• Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning

Both sets of content standards further

include principles that define the desired

proficiencies, competencies and

academic behaviors of college and

career-ready students.

The Goal: to develop college and career-ready students

New Performance-based Assessments

Focusing on performance assessments,

means that students should be

encouraged to demonstrate their

understanding in a variety of ways.

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College and Career Readiness

Content standards – fewer, deeper, more rigorous

Student standards of performance

- Mathematical Practice

- College and Career competencies

Next Generation Assessments

The application of knowledge — student performance in new and unrehearsed situations— as a true measure of understanding

The necessity for new instructional approaches

The relationship between implementation of the Common Core in the classroom and “educator effectiveness” evaluations

What’s easy to see in the standards….

The less visible implications of the standards…

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Implication #1 The application of knowledge — student performance in new and unrehearsed situations — is the true measure of student understanding.

Task 1Who is the most important person in American history: Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, or King? Explain your answer.

Task 2Explain how Dr. King’s use of repetition and references to moral truths in Letter from a Birmingham Jail echo those of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Which of these two tasks would be more likely to assess a student’s ability to demonstrate their real understanding of content in a new and unrehearsed way?

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The application of knowledge — student performance in new and unrehearsed situations— as a true measure of understanding

The necessity for new instructional approaches

The relationship between implementation of the Common Core in the classroom and “educator effectiveness” evaluations

Implication #2 Most teachers will need to make instructional shifts if they are to provide the environment for their students to demonstrate real understanding.

A Mathematics Classroom ShiftFrom mathematical authority coming from the teacher or textbook toward mathematical authority coming from sound student reasoning.

Instructional Shifts Mathematics

Focus Where the standards focus

Coherence Think across grades and to major topics within grades

Rigor

Fluency Speed, accuracy, core functions, able to understand complex concepts

Deep Understanding Deep conceptual understanding that is applicable to new situations

Application Choose the appropriate concept, link to real world application

Dual Intensity Practicing and understanding mathematics

Instructional Shifts Literacy

Build knowledge through informational text

Balance informational and literary text (PK-5)

Knowledge in the discipline (grades 6-12)

Reading and writing grounded in evidence from the text

Text-based answers

Writing from sources

Regular Practice with complex text and academic vocabulary

Staircase of complexity

Academic vocabulary

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Implication #3

There is a direct relationship

between the implementation of the

Common Core in the classroom

and “educator effectiveness”

evaluations.

Initiatives, needs &

problems / gaps in

understanding

Unexpected benefitsUPS

• “I’m not sure if our district is ready for the CCSS. Do we have the the right things in place to succeed?”

• “How do I get my teachers and their students ready for the new PARCC and SBAC performance assessments?”

• “The CCSS indicate that teachers will have to teach differently, but they don’t really specify new classroom practices. How do I get my teachers to teach differently?”

• “How do I observe if my teachers are doing the right things to help students become college and career ready?”

• “We have a variety of services to identify and address gaps in your training and classroom practices that will impede success.”

• “Our ‘Tools’ series emphasizes the development of student performance throughout the year so as to reinforce CCR.”

• “We’ve made the focus on new instructional strategies a hallmark of our more than 70 CC workshops and services.”

• “Our Observation Framework and Coaching Tools will help you look for and develop CCR classroom practices.”

Framing our

Unique

Positioning

Strategy

Initiatives, needs &

problems / gaps in

understanding

Unexpected benefitsUPS

When thinking about the implementation of the Common Core, we hear a lot of talk about needing

to address the changes reflected in the standards—the various content shifts, the new performance

assessments, and desired student academic behaviors.

• Our almost 100 grade-banded services recognize the need for a strong understanding of these

fundamental changes, but then we take you further.

• We help you manage the real implications of these changes to student performance, instruction,

and monitoring classroom instruction — those things that will either enhance or impede your ability

to achieve the goal of the Common Core: the development of college and career ready students.

Framing our

Unique

Positioning

Strategy

The Unique Pearson Response

A continuum of almost 100 grade-banded workshops and services that are:

• cohesive

• flexible

• differentiated

to help meet customers where they are in their implementation process.

Provides a variety of time- and

budget-sensitive tools to help

our customers determine their

specific implementation needs

• Pre-training survey

• 3 Intensity Levels of

College and Career

Readiness Assessments

• Technology Infrastructure

Assessment

Unique Solutions – Planning Implementation

• More than 500 unique school and district implementations across the country over the past two years

- The fundamental services and workshops that are necessary to understand the Common Core

- and help administrators and teachers make the instructional shifts that will lead to improved student performance

• Training materials that are so respected, they were adopted for use by the Hamilton Co (OH) ESC

Unique Solutions – Building Knowledge and Skills

Adding the power of “thought leadership” – a research-focused partnership with Dr. Robert A. Marzano• Integration of Dr. Robert Marzano’s research-based teaching strategies

The Critical Alignment -

Curriculum • Instruction • Assessment = Improved Student Performance

Focuses on the characteristics

of student performance, the

development of performance

tasks, alignment of tasks to the

CCSS, and the analysis of

student learning using

performance tasks

• the un-test prep, on-going

assessment-preparation

solution

Unique Solutions – Measuring Student

Understanding

• Increases the likelihood of

student achievement by

planning CCSS-aligned

instructional units that focus on

performance

• Outlines instructional

strategies that enable students

to demonstrate understanding

and develop strong academic

behaviors

Unique Solutions – Developing Curriculum Models

• Ensures the application of

training through ongoing, job-

embedded support for teacher

workgroups engaged in

designing CCSS-based

curriculum and instruction

• Provides Math and Literacy

observation frameworks and

coaching tools to help

teachers develop the desired

instructional shifts; already

deployed in CT and PA

Unique Solutions – Implementing

Instructional Change

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Implementing Instructional Change through Pearson’s Common Core Mathematics and Literacy Observation Frameworks and Coaching Tools

• Provides districts with the

tools they require to grow and

sustain the internal capacity

needed to successfully

implement the CCSS

implementation, e.g., Capacity

Builder PlusTM successfully

deployed in AZ, DE, PA, TN,

WA

• Provides job-embedded

support to reinforce changes in

classroom

Unique Solutions – Sustaining and

Growing Capacity

Case Study

• Conduct two office visits with key K-8 Diocesan personnel to identify needs

• Outlining and delivery of K-8 focused custom mini-institute

• Conduct informal introduction and discussions at NCEA

• Delivery of $14K worth of Elementary CC PD

• Delivery of $14K worth of Leadership PD • Additional CBP CC contract for $61.5K under development

• Leverage successful Secondary relationship ($80K CC sales to date) with K-8 Curriculum / PD Director