Mississippi Common Core Consortium

An editorial in the Sun Herald by the Superintendent of Pascagoula schools tells about a new Common Core web resource. It is called the Mississippi Common Core Consortium. Its goal is to provide educators with the resources needed to learn more about and confidently teach students the Common Core State Standards.  You can find a variety of resources through out the website for educators, parents, and students.

The Next Generation Science Standards

Next Generation Science Standards for Today’s Students and Tomorrow’s Workforce: Through a collaborative, state-led process managed by Achieve, new K–12 science standards have been developed that are rich in content and practice, arranged in a coherent manner across disciplines and grades to provide all students an internationally benchmarked science education. The NGSS is based on the Framework for K–12 Science Education developed by the National Research Council.

Click on the logo to visit the Next Generation Science Standards website

MDE C & I Listserv

The MDE has a new C & I listserv where they send “blasts” out very often about new CCSS and PARCC resources, materials,  policy updates, and MDE CCSS trainings.    This listserv is open to anyone and is the MDE’s new way of increasing a direct line of communication between teachers, administrators and other interested parties.

Pease use this link to sign up:
http://fyt.mde.k12.ms.us/subscribe/subscribe_curriculum.html

Please use this link to access their calendar of upcoming trainings:
https://districtaccess.mde.k12.ms.us/curriculumandInstruction/Lists/Calendar/calendar.aspx

MDE on iTunes-U

Mississippi iTunes U

Welcome to the Mississippi Department of Education on iTunes U! This service offers an additional way to access the valuable educational content available from the MDE. Mississippi on iTunes U brings together teaching and professional development resources for educators.

You must have iTunes to view this site.  If you don’t have iTunes,  you can download the free iTunes application for Windows or Mac.

I recently viewed a webinar called CCSS for ELA: Organization of the Standards. In this 35 minute presentation, a convenient graphic organizer is shared, as well as updates regarding the Curriculum and Instruction page at the MDE.

The presenter points out how the Common Core Standards are organized.

• At the top are the Common Core Standards.
• These are subdivided into Strands: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language
• Next are the Anchor Standards – what students need to know and be able to do. For example, Anchor Standard 1 is Read Closely, and Anchor Standard 10 is Cite Evidence.
• Finally, these are divided into Grade Specific Standards

Throughout the entire CCSS, we are going to see that text complexity increases, students will increase their use of informational text, and writing is tied to reading material.

The Hunt Institute Video Vignettes

The Hunt Institute and the Council of Chief State School Officers have commissioned a series of video vignettes that explain the Common Core State Standards in greater depth to help states as they implement the new Standards.

Common Core 360

Let’s get excited about Common Core 360!
Here is a place where teachers can learn about the Common Core Standards.

OSSD has the Common Core license and here’s how you access this resource:
1. log in (if you forgot your login info, it will be emailed to you)
2. click on the Common Core icon
3. click on the Common Core 360 license link
4. Now you should see 7 links with Common Core information

Click on each resource to see other layers of information available to you.

Don’t miss the School Improvement Network blog.
Phenomenal information! Something for everyone.

There’s an app for that

Access the standards Anytime, Anywhere.

It’s easy to access the standards from any mobile device.    

View the Common Core State Standards in one convenient FREE app! Quickly find standards by subject, grade, and subject category (domain/cluster).  This app includes Math standards K-12 and Language Arts standards K-12. The Math standards include both traditional and integrated pathways (as outlined in Appendix A of the common core) and synthesizes Language Arts standards with the Corresponding College and Career Readiness Standards (CCR’s).

To learn more about MasteryConnect’s free web-based solution for teachers to track common core standards and parents to follow along, check out http://masteryconnect.com

Beyond the Bubble

The “Beyond the Bubble” website provides teachers with short “History Assessments of Thinking” (HATS) using documents from the Library of Congress’s vast digital collection. Steering a middle course between discrete multiple choice items and hour-long “Document-Based” essays, HATs allow teachers to make frequent checks of student understanding and to adjust their instruction accordingly. Each HAT comes with a digitized primary source, an interactive scoring rubric, and sample student responses.

Lessons for Social Studies Educators

In this 6-12 Vocabulary pdf document you will see lessons that apply to Reading Standard 4: Vocabulary

Overview: Good vocabulary instruction focuses on important words necessary to fully understand the content of social studies and usually involves teaching conceptually related words rather than individual words unrelated to one another. The maxim to “relate the new to the known” is highly applicable in vocabulary instruction – students must make connections between words they already know and words they are learning. There is no single best way to teach terms and phrases. However, the research and theory on vocabulary development does point to a few generalizations that provide strong guidance.

Grade 9-10 Science Literacy

  An Implementation Guide For Integrating Literacy In Science: the focus of this document is grade 9-10 Science Literacy. Visit this blogger for information on implementing the Common Core Standards in Science.