It's true that state standards often have way too much content and aren't written in a way that enhances classroom instruction and formative assessment. That's why this guide is invaluable for any educator who wants to ensure that standards actually lead to higher student achievement. The authors give you good reasons for why some content standards should be dropped and explain how benchmark statements in standards should be rewritten. Learn how to sequence content and set up grading scales that help facilitate formative assessment and effective instruction. And get clear steps for unpacking and converting standards into guidelines that are much more useful to classroom teachers. To implement this book's much more efficient approach, the authors included over 240 pages of detailed scoring scales and sample measurement topics for k-8 science, math, language arts, social studies, and critical life skills topics for elementary through high school students.

Every state has developed some form of early learning standards. Find out how you can apply and use them in ways that are most beneficial to children. Updated to reflect the continuing evolution of early learning standards, this book offers help and hints, support and clarification, and clear explanations of how you can make early learning standards come alive in your early childhood classroom or program. You’ll find tools to communicate exactly how you are addressing children’s learning as you plan for cognitive and foundational skill development, as well as suggestions to assess children’s progress. Easy-to-read charts present information about each major content area or area of development and descriptions of what those standards might look like in classrooms. The charts also suggest activities and interactions to support a child as he or she makes the first attempts toward the standard, progresses toward it, and finally accomplishes the standard. New to this edition: A chapter focusing on Approaches to Learning standards The most recent information on early learning standards from across the country References to the Common Core State Standards and their relationship to early learning standards Gaye Gronlund has consulted for national organizations, state agencies, school districts, and early childhood programs for more than twenty years. She helped two states write their early learning standards. Gronlund is well known for her many books and keynote presentations.

Discover how to weave an in-depth understanding of the Common Core into successful classroom practice with this two-part resource. You’ll learn how to power the standards with guided assessment and measure student progress in a way that accurately reflects learning. Included are hundreds of ready-to-use, research-based proficiency scales for both English language arts and mathematics.

Unlock hidden writing skills in all learners through UDL! The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for writing are promising but are challenging to implement, especially for struggling students. Sally A. Spencer demonstrates the promise of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a framework for making the CCSS writing and language standards accessible to all kids. Educators who utilize these strategies will know: How to leverage the strengths of students to optimize writing instruction and overcome their weaknesses The ways UDL can minimize the roadblocks in CCSS implementation How to - and how not to - use technology to teach writing and language conventions

The amount and range of information available to today’s students—and indeed to all learners—is unprecedented. If the characteristics of “the information age” demand new conceptions of commerce, national security, and publishing—among other things—it is logical to assume that they carry implications for education as well. Little has been written, however, about how the specific affordances of these technologies—and the kinds of information they allow students to access and create—relate to the central purpose of education: learning. What does “learning” mean in an information-rich environment? What are its characteristics? What kinds of tasks should it involve? What concepts, strategies, attitudes, and skills do educators and students need to master if they are to learn effectively and efficiently in such an environment? How can researchers, theorists, and practitioners foster the well-founded and widespread development of such key elements of the learning process? This second edition continues these discussions and suggests some tentative answers. Drawing primarily from research and theory in three distinct but related fields—learning theory, instructional systems design, and information studies—it presents a way to think about learning that responds directly to the actualities of a world brimming with information. The second edition also includes insights from digital and critical literacies and provides a combination of an updated research-and-theory base and a collection of instructional scenarios for helping teachers and librarians implement each step of the I-LEARN model. The book could be used in courses in teacher preparation, academic-librarian preparation, and school-librarian preparation.

Featuring the latest research on standards and curriculum design, this valuable resource provides educators with a systematic approach for instructional planning aligned with today's high standards.

This book describes in detail how educators can apply curriculum standards, performance standards and opportunity standards to improve education of special learners. It provides practical examples which show you how to develop and implement standards-based IEPs, use curriculum standards and benchmarks to develop long term plans, develop performance tasks for students with disabilities, and develop curriculum units for students with disabilities. This book shows you that students with disabilities can profit from and be involved with the types of standards currently used with other students.

Provides step-by-step guidance on how to design and implement standards-based performance assessment to make improved teaching and learning a reality in the classroom.

Virtually every national standards document, every state framework, and every local set of standards calls for fundamental changes in what and how teachers teach. The challenge for teachers is to implement the vision for mathematics and science classrooms called for in the standards. This issue describes that vision and suggests ways to use the standards mandated in your school to improve your practice--to help you teach in your standards-based classroom.

Collect the data you need to reach every student! Veteran educators Gregory and Kuzmich provide user-friendly techniques for data-gathering, helping you to differentiate instruction. This informative book is now fully updated to support the Common Core and other key standards, and includes: Step-by-step guidance on gathering data to improve classroom dynamics, pinpoint student learning styles, adjust lessons for different learners, and inform diagnostic teaching and assessment Techniques for using data to refresh and strengthen curriculum, including numerous unit and lesson plans fully linked with the Common Core A wealth of templates for fast and simple data collection Updated differentiation strategies for the Common Core and other key standards, including the Career and College Readiness Standards and the Standards of Mathematical Practice