Sunday, March 17, 2013

Unwrapping the Common Core Standards

Love them or hate them, the Common Core is a reality for the majority of educators and schools across the country.  As a principal I am always on the look out for resources that can aid my teachers with the successful implementation of these standards.  While attending the 2013 ASCD Conference in Chicago I attended a session entitled Unwrapping Standards to Drive the Adoption of the Common Core State Standards.  The presentation was facilitated by the Clark Country School District in Nevada.  As they stated, many teachers are not unwrapping standards themselves.  As a result they are blinding using information and tend to focus on parts of a standard as opposed to the whole thing.  By unwrapping standards educators see the interconnectedness within the Common Core.

Image credit: http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=485958

During the presentation Wiki-Teacher was shared.  This is a free resource for any educator to use to assist with unwrapping the Common Core Standards. As the Wiki states the lesson plans, unit plans, centers, textbook supplements, and other resources found on Wiki-Teacher are created and shared by educators. Resources contributed to the site are reviewed by content experts and peer-rated by all of the members of Wiki-Teacher.  Educators can also access demonstration videos once a free account is created. I will most certainly be sharing this resource with my staff upon my return to New Milford High School.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for sharing and posting the Wiki-Teacher resource. My colleague and I made our first attempt at unwrapping last Thursday and found it a frustrating and slow process since we have no experience doing this and had no facilitator. The benchmarks unwrapped on the Wiki-Teacher seem to follow the format and vocabulary from the book "Common Formative Assessment" by Kim Bailey & Chris Jakicic. Do you know about this book? Once again, my thanks.

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