Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

STEMscopes Math Receives Top Rating from Learning List for Alignment to Common Core State Standards for Grades K-5

HOUSTON – July 14, 2021 – STEMscopes Math from Accelerate Learning has received the highest rating from Learning List for alignment to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and Mathematical Practices for grades K-5. Published this month, Learning List’s new, independent review of STEMscopes Math includes a standard-by-standard review of the alignment of material for grades K-2, a review of the product’s instructional quality, and a review of its technology compatibility. In March of 2021, Learning List completed and published its review of STEMscopes Math for grades 3-5.

STEMscopes Math is a core mathematics program for grades K-5. It combines digital, print, and kit components to provide teachers with everything they need to create meaningful math learning experiences for students. The curriculum is available in English and Spanish, and it can be used in the classroom, distance learning, and hybrid learning settings.

STEMscopes Math incorporates the 5E plus Intervention and Acceleration lesson model, the Concrete-Representational-Abstract (CRA) approach, intentional discourse, and real-world exploration to provide a fresh approach to math instruction. From hands-on, inquiry-based math investigations to career connections to current events stories, it bridges the gap between the classroom and real world, and brings meaning and context to the math concepts and skills students are learning.…Read More

How shifting to a UDL mindset enhances Common Core

When special and general ed teachers collaborate, everyone benefits

The implementation of the Common Core State Standards has been met with anxiety from administrators and educators at every level, because, like any major change, it can seem scary and overwhelming. General education teachers have had to learn and apply new instructional strategies to address the new standards and the vision that the standards embody, particularly universal design for learning. Special education teachers have been required for the first time to become pseudo subject-area experts to help struggling students and those with learning disabilities meet the standards.

This can be a stressful time for everyone. However, when educators are empowered to share their expertise with one another, and given the time and place they need to collaborate, they surpass expectations and their students soar.

At Sweetwater Union High School District, located near San Diego, we bring general and special education teachers together to meet the needs of students through a framework known as universal design for learning, which provides something of a blueprint for creating learning goals and materials that work for all learners. We accomplish this through carefully-designed cohorts, teacher-led “zones,” online resources support, and by fostering a collaborative culture.…Read More

Common Core is changing how schools teach ELA and math

New report finds Common Core is affecting reading and math — but not test scores

States considered strong adopters of Common Core are more likely to see a de-emphasis of fiction and a decline in advanced math enrollment among middle school students, according to a new report that also found a trivial difference in test scores between states that have and have not adopted the standards.

The report, from the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, pulls data from surveys conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to see how far Common Core recommendations have seeped into states’ instruction, comparing data from 2011 to 2015. The question of whether students should focus on analyzing fiction, which has been traditionally favored by schools, or nonfiction, which is favored by the CCSS, was considered a major implementation hurdle just a few years ago.

On that point, it appears Common Core’s suggestions are winning out over entrenched practice. In 2011, according to the data, 63 percent of students had teachers who said they emphasized fiction, compared with 38 percent of students with teachers who said they were emphasizing nonfiction — a 25 percent gap. By 2015, however, that gap had shrunk to just eight percent, with 45 percent of students who have teachers emphasizing nonfiction. The gap shrunk for eighth grade students from 34 percent in 2011 to 16 percent in 2015.…Read More

The best tips for getting your school ready for Common Core assessments

An elearning pro shares how to prioritize to make the transition to online assessments smoother

common core assessmentsAs with anything in life, certain tradeoffs must happen in order for schools to spread already-thin resources across all critical projects. Schools already face this challenge on a daily basis, and now they must become Common Core assessment-ready at a time when resources are especially tight.

“In the end, there have to be some projects and/or expenses that receive lower priority within the district,” says Thomas Ryan, Ph.D., CEO at eLearn Institute, Inc., a nonprofit that helps districts prepare online learning strategies. “At this point, any prioritization that takes place really has to be based on district-wide, long-term decisions.”

Transitioning to a data-driven system
In looking at the digital education shift as a whole, Ryan says some schools are “holding onto the old way of doing things” even as they realize that the shift to online assessments is going to have to happen. “Trying to support a paper-based instructional model and a digital-based model is just too expensive,” says Ryan. “Unless there’s a stream of new funding coming in, schools really need to start putting [digital] transition plans in place.”…Read More

How to Create Assessments for The Common Core

Here’s how to create new formative assessments to measure complex student comprehension

assessments-common coreThe rigors of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) ask today’s educators not simply to measure students’ factual knowledge, but instead to accurately assess students’ critical thinking. With such a major transition from multiple-choice testing, it’s important to know how to create assessments for these 21st-century standards.

“The most important question to ask at the onset of assessment creation is: How might we develop and use rich tasks to focus on those outcomes that matter most, and make school more relevant and engaging for learners and teachers?” explained Jay McTighe, consultant and author of the new Lumibook, Core Learning: Assessing What Matters Most, during a webinar hosted by the School Improvement Network.

McTighe emphasized that the aim of the new standards is autonomous transfer, or student comprehension and understanding of concepts, rather than facts.…Read More