Common Core State Standards

Before reading the first chapter of Teaching to Exceed the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, I was under the impression that the Common Core State Standards was just a series of standards that the students will be tested on and have to follow in sequential order. After reading the document and the example situations I now realize that many of the issues that arise with the CCSS's are due to improper implementation, rather than the Standards themselves. The opinion on whether or not school teachers approve of the standards or not, directly relate to how the district uses the standards when interacting with the students and curriculum.

The biggest fear that I have heard from teacher candidates and teachers who “glance” at the standards, say that the standards will be too regimented and not flexible enough to allow students “wiggle” room within the system. The fear is that either students who are behind will stay behind, the students who work ahead won’t be challenged enough, or that the standards will hurt the teachers creativity in making the activities and choosing material for the class. While some districts that try to implement the standards do end up taking away from the teachers creativity, like in the testimonial with Kyle, many of the districts are using the standards as a way of measuring students’ progress throughout the year. The standards can also be adapted to meet the needs of students who are behind or ahead, based off what the class environment needs to focus on.

The second fear for many teachers and teacher candidates is the fear that the standards will encourage teaching to the test. I have witnessed first-hand what happens to students when the school’s main focus is for the students to pass a test. The students and the teachers are stunted in their creativity and the material is approached in an unengaging way. Teachers I have talked to have stated their fears about the standards being used to create tests and then subsequently teaching specifically to pass those tests. Although this might be a problem with schools who have adopted the CCSS’s, this is a problem beyond the standards and is more focused on how a teacher introduces the standards and the course, rather than the standards enforcing those restrictions on teachers.

The more I read about the Common Core State Standards, the more I found I liked to work with them and create plans around them. The CCSS’s are really just an outline for what teachers can do, rather than what teachers have to do. The teacher still retains their creativity, as well as the students ability to learn at their pace. The biggest problem with the Common Core State Standards is that not enough school districts know how to properly introduce the standards into the school system.

"DISCUSSION AS A WAY OF TEACHING" Response

             “Discussion as a way of teaching” is a great article by Stephen Brookfield that explains how teachers can integrate discussions into the normal classroom activities. Many of the activities that Brookfield explains are classroom discussion outlines that I have seen before in classes that I have taken. One of the discussions ways that I hadn’t seen before, and would like to try in the classroom, would be the conversational moves. The Conversational moves are interesting because the moves can help students get away from their normal discussion roles. Conversational roles are very similar to Conversational Moves because the roles are dictated to the students. Conversational roles give students roles that they take on in the group discussion. In this way, we teachers can push students outside their comfort zones. One of the most common type of discussion modeling that I have seen and used in the classroom is the snowballing discussion. The snowballing discussion is easy to introduce to the class because it is the type of discussion that gets the discussion moving. In the beginning of the year when students are still trying to get to know each other, and getting a feel for how they want to interact with the rest of the class. The snowballing discussion lets those who want to take a larger role, take the larger role.

           

 I noticed in the document that many of the discussion types seemed to fall under one of two categories, and can be used with students at different times. One of the types of discussions is the democratic type. The democratic types of discussions allows students to participate at will and let the students take control of the discussion and where it is heading. The other types of discussions presented in the document is the regulated or facilitated discussions. These discussions require a strong role of the teacher to enforce the ground rules set up in the discussion. These two types of discussions can be used at different times. In the beginning of the course, it would be smart of a teacher to take more of a facilitator role with the students, until they are comfortable enough with the material and each other that they are willing to speak up. Democratic types of discussions are best done with classes that are well versed in the material, or are more comfortable with their speaking ability. With this document by Brookfield, teachers have a great resource to use in the classroom to give students more control in their learning of the subject matter.