This document outlines signs that a classroom may not be effectively implementing Common Core standards, including: lecturing for over 40% of class time, lack of student engagement, rows of chairs facing forward, relying mainly on overhead projectors, lessons not being student-oriented, low-level questioning, lack of real-world applications, absence of essential questions, insufficient comprehension skill demonstration, over-reliance on fiction texts, and disconnect from standards and skills in other grades. The key message is that effective Common Core implementation requires student-centered, skills-focused, collaborative, and technology-integrated lessons aligned to the standards.

1. Common Core Implementation in
the Classroom

2. You know you are in
trouble when…..

3. You are standing in front of the
class and lecturing over 40% of the
class time

4. Students are not engaged
during guided practice or
no guided practice.

5. The chairs are in a straight
row.

6. The overhead projector / smart board
is your main presentation mode (only
one learning style is addressed).

7. The lesson is not student
oriented (less teacher talk)

8. One word answer
is the standard
mode of student
response

9. No problems are being
solved

10. No vocabulary
introduced/integrated

11. No products or evidence are
apparent to indicate that
students have learned the
concept.

12. Only pencil and paper
assessments are used.

13. Levels of questions
are on the knowledge
level (over 15%)

14. No application to real life
situations to the concept or
skill being taught.

15. No essential question
demonstrated/known to the teacher
or to the students or to the observer.

16. No comprehension skills
demonstrated in content areas
(science-social studies)

17. The ELA content
used is over
50% fiction

18. No linkage of the
skills/content to other
grades, academic disciplines

19. The textbook guides what is
being taught (beginning of
the book to the end-taught
sequentially)

20. No use of themes in the
texts/lessons

21. Not teaching the identified skills
outlined from the Standard
Course of Study

22. Not doing cumulative review daily

23. When basic mathematical
practices are not
implemented

24. When writing is not taking
place in all classrooms

25. When students are not working
collaboratively to reach a
goal/answer an essential question

26. When technology is not being
integrated across the disciplines

27. WHEN YOU ARE
NOT AWARE OF
THE NEW
STANDARDS!!