Getting Started with the CCRS

Welcome to Nevada’s Professional Development Blog – a website established by the state professional development team to help you implement and utilize the College and Career Readiness Standards in your programs and classrooms.   We will provide helpful resources and advice as you transition to a standards-based curriculum.  In addition, we will address questions and concerns that repeatedly surface as we train adult educators in the state via Professional Learning Communities, webinars, or workshops.  We hope you consider us your go-to resource for Adult Basic Education professional development in Nevada.

Let’s get started with three things you can do RIGHT NOW to begin implementing the standards in your own classroom.

1.  UNPACK THE STANDARDS

First, you need to understand the standards.  Once you download the College and Career Readiness Standards for Adult Basic Education, you should familiarize yourself with the five grade-level groupings: A (K–1), B (2–3), C (4–5), D (6–8), and E (9–12), the content in your specific level, and the slight organizational differences between the English Language Arts and Math standards.  Now, it’s time to unpack.  What this entails is taking a close look at each standard, understanding what the standard is describing, and providing a specific example to address the standard.  You will find that some standards seem relatively straightforward while others require more analysis.  Let’s take a look at what our colleagues in Kentucky have created for Reading for Information for grades 9-10 (blank and completed ‘unpacking’ charts found here):

Column 1:  The standard as it is written.

Column 2:  The ‘skills’ translates to the specific task, as written, in the standard.  What does the student need to ‘do’?  Think VERB or SKILL here.  Students here have to ‘cite’.

Column 3:  The concept, as written, in the standard.  Think of this as the WHAT.  Look for the nouns.  What do students have to cite?  Textual evidence.

Column 4:  The context is what the student will use to accomplish the SKILL and the WHAT.  In this example, ‘the text’ is what students will be using.  NOTE:  Not all standards provide a context.

Column 5:  Using Webb’s Depth of Knowledge and/or Blooms Taxonomy determine the level of cognitive demand.

Column 6:  A sample activity that addresses the standard.

The Reader’s Digest version using my Nevada Lunch Standard NLS.3.1

Consume falafel with a fork.  Let's unpack our lunch:

The skill would be “consume”.

Consume what?  The concept is “falafel”.

The context is the how.  How will we eat our falafel?  We will eat our falafel with a “fork” (as opposed to in a pita or with my fingers).

Here’s a math example from grade 8:

This may seem like a lot of work, but it will really help you get your head around specific standards and will, in our experience, make teaching the standards feel more manageable.

2.  ASK TEXT-DEPENDENT QUESTIONS

Most of you are probably doing some of this already.  That being said, the CCRS version of text-dependent questioning is the equivalent of moving from a green circle to a black diamond slope on Northern Nevada’s ski slopes.  To get started, download Webb’s Depth of Knowledge questions stems.  Keep in mind that DOK is NOT determined by the verb (like Bloom’s Taxonomy) and is not a taxonomy.  Depth of Knowledge is determined by the context in which the verb is used and the depth of thinking required.  DOK is about cognitive complexity rather than difficulty.

For example, let’s look at DOK level 1.  Level 1 requires students to use simple skills or abilities to recall or locate facts from the text.  As a level one task, we could ask our students to define the word ‘proud’.  The task requires basic initial comprehension, not analysis or interpretation.  We could then ask our students to define the word ‘obfuscate’.  While this is a more difficult word, the task remains the same at a level 1.  You could change to a level 3 by asking, “Why did the author use the word, ‘proud’ when describing character x?”  The High School Equivalency tests use a combination of level 1-3 questions (By 2016, TASC test will fully integrate all DOK levels); therefore, using similar questioning techniques will better prepare your students.

3.  GET YOUR STUDENTS TO WRITE.

After introducing a text and spending some time asking text-dependent questions, get your students to write. This task is easier on the learner if you spend a lot of time talking before writing. Engage your students in collaborative discussions about the text. With ELL students, ample discussion before writing really helps them to focus on what they want to write about, which could be answering a question that you give them. Help them to develop a good first sentence. If you ask them to write about something in the text, ask them to cite where they found this information. This is important to include in their writing.

For example, for low-level students, they may create a simple timeline or a collage using words from the text. If they are reading a text on where soccer balls came from, they could create a timeline that dates from the Greek, Roman and Egyptian times where soccer was played with skulls or pig's bladders.  As they progress on the timeline they could include the creation of the first rubber soccer ball by Charles Goodyear. Then they could show how the ball and the game evolved through to the twentieth century.

For mid to high-level students, they could research online the history of the soccer ball and then write a brief paragraph highlighting the most important facts.

Advanced students could research the advantages and disadvantages of different materials used for soccer balls over time and how the progression of materials used could have influenced the quality and popularity of the game.

The point is that, when you include writing in your lessons, you dig deeper into the text that you are reading. You also get your students to pay attention to the language of the text (and their writing). My favorite reason is that you get the students talking!