Implementing the Common Core State Standards successfully means more than replacing one set of curriculum maps or pacing plans with another. The standards are important, not because of the specific topics that have to be covered at one grade level or another, but because of the vertical coherence they provide from grade to grade, the clarity and focus they provide across all grade levels, and the insistence on rigor, critical thinking, and real-world problem-solving that is embedded throughout the standards. In other words, the standards can help us paint a picture for our students and our communities of what 21st century teaching and learning should look like.

1. Andrew Ordover, Ed.D.
Vice President, Product Development
IMPLEMENTING THE COMMON CORE
THREE KEYS FOR SUCCESS

2. Everybody’s Talking…
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3. You Can’t Handle the Truth!
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4. Just the Facts…
The Common Core State Standards ARE…
• A state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors
Association and the CCSSO
• Adopted by 45 States + DC
• Aligned with 21st century college and work expectations
• Built upon the strengths and lessons of previous state standards
• More focused and coherent than many previous sets of
standards
• Internationally benchmarked so that all students are prepared
to succeed in our global economy and society
• Research and evidence based
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5. Just the Facts…
The Common Core State Standards are NOT…
• A national curriculum that mandates WHAT you must teach on
any given day, week, or month
• An national instructional model that mandates HOW you must
teach
• A national set of approved or mandated texts or materials to
support instruction
• A global plot to fluoridate your water and make you start using
the metric system
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6. Instructional Shifts: Literacy
1. Balancing Informational and Literary Text
2. Knowledge in the Disciplines
3. Staircase of Complexity
4. Text-based Answers
5. Writing from Sources
6. Academic Vocabulary
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7. Instructional Shifts: Math
1. Focus
2. Coherence
3. Fluency
4. Deep Understanding
5. Application
6. Dual Intensity
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8. The Challenge: How Do We Move from Lists…
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9. …to Life?
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10. WHAT ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT?
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11. The First Key
Setting a Standard for Rigor
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12. What Does Setting a Standard Mean?
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It means setting norms and expectations
relating to the form you’re looking for…

13. What Does Setting a Standard Mean?
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And the content…

14. What Does Setting a Standard Mean?
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And the content…

15. Do Our Standards Set a Standard?
Find a percent of a quantity as a rate per 100 (e.g., 30% of a
quantity means 30/100 times the quantity); solve problems
involving finding the whole, given a part and the percent.
CCSS Math Content Standard 6.RP.A.3c
1. Identify 50% of 20
2. Identify 67% of 81
3. Shawn got 7 correct answers out of 10 possible answers on his science test.
What percent of questions did he get correct?
4. J.J. Redick was on pace to set an NCAA record in career free-throw
percentage. Leading into the NCAA tournament in 2004, he made 97 of 104
free-throw attempts. In the first tournament game, Redick missed his first five
free throws. How far did his percentage drop from before the tournament
game to right after missing those free throws?
Adapted from Driven by Data, Paul Bambrick-Santoya

16. Using Exemplars to Set a Standard
Reading Materials
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http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_B.pdf

17. Using Exemplars to Set a Standard
Reading Assignments
• Literature: Students refer to the structural elements (e.g., verse, rhythm,
meter) of Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat” when analyzing the
poem and contrasting the impact and differences of those elements to a
prose summary of the poem. [RL.4.5]
• History: Students analyze the role of African American soldiers in the Civil
War by comparing and contrasting primary source materials against
secondary syntheses such as Jim Haskins’s Black, Blue and Gray: African
Americans in the Civil War. [RH.9–10.9]
• Science: Students cite specific textual evidence from Annie J. Cannon’s
“Classifying the Stars” to support their analysis of the scientific importance
of the discovery that light is composed of many colors. Students include in
their analysis precise details from the text (such as Cannon’s repeated use of
the image of the rainbow) to buttress their explanation. [RST.9–10.1].
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http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_B.pdf

18. Using Exemplars to Set a Standard
Writing from Reading
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http://www.corestandards.org/assets/Appendix_C.pdf

19. Sample Item  Constructed Response
Balanced Assessment Consortium
S M A R T E R
Elementary School Item
What is the greatest amount
Tyler should spend?
© 2013 CATAPULT LEARNING, LLC – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 19

20. High School
© 2013 CATAPULT LEARNING, LLC – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 20
Using Sample Test Items to Set a Standard

21. Using Teaching Rubrics to Set a Standard
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22. Using Teaching Rubrics to Set a Standard
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23. Using Teaching Rubrics to Set a Standard
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24. HELPING HANDS
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25. The Second Key
Creating a Culture of Inquiry
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26. What is Inquiry?
Characteristics
 Learning is driven by challenging, open-ended, ill-defined
and ill-structured problems
 Students generally work in collaborative groups
 Teachers take on the role as "facilitators" of learning

27. The Inquiry Cycle
1. Posing Questions
2. Seeking Answers
3. Re-evaluating Initial Inquiries
4. Sharing/Communicating Results
5. Posing New Questions

28. Where the Standards Demand Inquiry: Literacy
 Students are expected to engage in rich, evidence-based dialogue
about a text they have read
 Teachers must now train students to stay in the text, to draw
conclusions and make arguments about the text and do so through
the text itself
 Teachers should be asking, “where do you see that in the text?
What paragraph? What sentence? What word?” and students
must begin to think and argue through and with texts by constantly
being asked to find evidence in what they have read.
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Some Examples:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.5 Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs,
and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.8 Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the
validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.9 Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to
build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.

29. Where the Standards Demand Inquiry: Math
1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
4. Model with mathematics.
5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
6. Attend to precision.
7. Look for and make use of structure.
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated
reasoning.
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30. How Textbooks Limit Inquiry
 Too many topics; not enough depth
• Broad coverage to meet all standards is often more important
than focused, in-depth knowledge
• This results is very abbreviated discussions or checklists of facts:
Stuff You Should Know
 One size fits all
• One reading level for all students
• Relying exclusively on textbooks makes it more challenging for
teachers to differentiate instruction.
 Textbooks are designed to deliver information easily
• They synthesize and “pre-digest” information and therefore do
most of the real thinking work for students
• But CCSS is asking for kids to grapple and struggle with text, to
draw conclusions of their own
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31. Getting Beyond the Textbook
 Build instruction around questions or problems instead of
statements beginning, “Students will learn…”
 Use more primary and secondary source text material, and
manipulatives or “labs”
 Encourage students to speculate about the texts they read:
• What was the creator’s purpose in writing this text?
• What does the creator do to get his or her point across?
• What was this text’s original audience?
• What biases or stereotypes are built in to the text?
 Make students work towards synthesis
• Ask students to find other primary or secondary sources that offer support or
contradiction.
• Ask students to test their assumptions and conclusions by doing further
research
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32. Posing Questions to Drive Inquiry
 Frame the year with questions that speak to the heart of
the subject area
 Frame the unit with questions that drive students towards
inquiry that will reveal the big ideas and important
concepts you need to teach
 Frame the day with questions that students can answer in
a class period

33. What Kinds of Questions Do We Ask?
Fact-Based
Open-EndedDebate-Based
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• Teacher-controlled
• Focused on demonstrating
knowledge individually
• Usually limited to a single
correct answer
• Aimed at getting the answer
right
• Confrontational
• Focused on making an
argument forcefully
• Usually limited to two
potential answers
• Aimed at winning
• Communal
• Focused on sharing
ideas respectfully
• No preconceived
correct answer—the
truth often lies in
synthesis
• Aimed at growing
understanding

34. The Importance of Argument
 Gerald Graff (2003) says “Argument literacy” is fundamental
to being considered an educated person.
 Richard Andrews (2009) says that argument is especially
important in a democratic society.
 David Conley (2010) identifies five cognitive strategies that
are crucial across disciplines in college-level work. The single
most important: the ability to explain a process or
phenomenon or take and defend a position.
 BUT in a recent study, only 3% of 8th graders and 6% of 12
graders were able to make informed, critical judgments based
on text (Perie, Grigg, Donahue, 2005).
 The same study showed 15% of 12th graders able to write
clear, well-organized essays taking and defending a position.
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35. The Importance of Dialogue
“If my perception and description of the world is true only
in a limited sense, that is, only as seen from my place in the
world, then if I wish to expand my grasp of reality I need to
learn from others what they know of reality that they can
perceive from their place in the world that I cannot see
from mine. That, however, can happen only through
dialogue.”
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What is Dialogue? Leonard Swidler, The Dialogue Institute

36. Creating a Culture of Dialogue
 It’s all about setting a standard that applies across the
school
• Not just in the classroom, but in the hallways, in the lunchroom
• Not just between adults and students in formal settings, but
among students anywhere…and among adults, as well
 A culture of dialogue requires:
• Ability to communicate clearly and logically
• Willingness to listen respectfully
• Openness to other opinions and perspectives
• Acceptance that you just might be wrong…
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37. What Happens in YOUR Faculty Room?
Raw Debate
• Open Advocacy
• Strategic
Listening
• Clear Agenda
• Goal of Winning
Polite Discussion
• Pretense of
Agreement
• Pretense of
Listening
• Hidden Agenda
• Goal of Holding
Original
Position
Skilled Discussion
• Sharing of
Perspectives
• Real Listening
• Shared Agenda
• Goal of Solving
a Problem
Dialogue
• Authentic
Inquiry
• Real Listening
• No Agenda
• Goal of
Reflection,
Understanding,
and Change
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The Culturally Proficient School, Lindsey, Roberts, and CampbellJones

38. HELPING HANDS
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39. The Third Key
Making Everyone a Stakeholder in Success
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40. Reaching Out Beyond English and Math
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Cross-Disciplinary Literacy Expectations
K-5: Embedded within the English standards
6-12: Separate literacy standards for History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Arts

41. Disciplinary Literacy
 Disciplinary literacy involves specialized ways of knowing and
communicating unique to different content areas.
 Disciplinary literacy requires focus on the special problems of that
content area and development of unique reading skills required for
academic literacy within that content area.
 It does not focus on basic literacy, but is concerned with the
question of what it means to be scientifically literate or
historically literate.
 “The idea of disciplinary literacy is that students not only
have to learn the essential content of a field, but
how reading and writing are used in that field.”
Timothy Shanahan, University of Illinois at Chicago
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42. Reaching Out to Non-Academic Staff
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43. Reaching Out to Non-Academic Staff
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Cheerleaders and Algebra
www.edutopia.org/harrison-high-school-technology-integration-video

44. Reaching Out to Parents
 Can parents support the academic standards being taught
in school?
YES, THEY CAN!
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• Students can help solve
regular household
problems involving math
• Students can read the
newspaper or listen to
public radio at home and
engage in “text-based”
conversations on current
events

45. Reaching Out to Parents
 Can parents participate in setting standards for rigor and
excellence?
YES, THEY CAN!
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• Household chores, like
academic homework,
shouldn’t just be done;
they should be done
correctly, neatly, and with
care.
• Parents of athletes (or
even just sports fans) can
make explicit connections
between athletic and
academic standards for
excellence

46. Reaching Out to Parents
 Can parents participate in creating a culture of inquiry and
life-long learning?
YES, THEY CAN!
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• Encourage parents to
engage in discussions with
students and ask questions
like:
• “What do you think?”
• “Why do you have that
opinion?”
• “How do you know it’s true?”
• “How would it be different if I
changed this part of it?”

47. Reaching Out to the Community
 The Common Core Standards are back-mapped to ensure
“College and Career Readiness”
 This should mean that your local community has a real
stake in the success of your students
 How can you make them feel like stakeholders?
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• Invite community members to
Common Core presentations
• Make sure local businesses
know when important test-days
occur. Invite them to connect
with students to wish them luck
• Find ways to connect key issues
like problem-solving and
informational texts with the life
of the larger community

48. HELPING HANDS
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49. Putting the Pieces Together
Setting a
Standard for
Rigor
Making
Everyone a
Stakeholder
Creating a
Culture of
Inquiry
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50. PIECE OF CAKE!
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