Monday, November 28, 2011

Common Core for the Holidays!

This school year has been unlike any other I’ve ever experienced. There have been so many changes, so many opportunities for growth, and many frustrating moments as we work together to implement these Common Core standards.


And now the mid-point of the school year is in our sights as well as a much needed break for the holidays. It is time for a mid-point reflection, as well as a time to buckle down for a spring semester that is full of intention, specificity, and rigor.


As I work with schools around the country, and primarily in New York State, there are elements to the Common Core implementation conversations that are similar. Those commonalities lend themselves nicely to a re-versioning of the classic Holiday song “The 12 Days of Christmas.”


I’ve created a LiveBinder presentation called Common Core for the Holidays for you to use for yourself or to share with your colleagues as you integrate and align the standards into your professional practice. It includes the following:


12 Instructional Shifts
11 Considerations
10 Instructional Strategies
9 Collaborative Opportunities
8 Standards for Mathematical Practice
7 College and Career Readiness Capacities
6 Exemplar Units
5 Unit Planning “Must-Do’s”
4 Depths of Knowledge
3 Document Hierarchies
2 Aligned Units
and
1 New Perspective


I hope you find some of this useful, and I welcome feedback around what I’ve put together. I’m delivering this as a specific workshop over the course of the next few weeks and some of the activities around the binder elements are not included. If you’re interested in some of the activities or have questions about what is included, please email, tweet, or comment.


I have a couple more holiday themed blog posts up my sleeve, including one that specifically looks at the 12 Instructional Shifts around the Common Core and some local teachers who visualized the shifts in a creative and innovative way! So, stay tuned!


I wish you all a wonderful Holiday season!



Mike Fisher
@fisher1000 on Twitter
www.digigogy.com

Friday, November 18, 2011

Common Core Resources for PE Teachers


I've been working on developing resources for Special Area teachers around the Common Core standards.  As I work with teachers who teach these subjects, it's becoming apparent that while there may be a willingness, there is not a path.

I put together a LiveBinder today of resources for Physical Education teachers. I'm still adding to it, but wanted to go ahead and share it. There is still much to consider and I'll be adding to it as I find relevant resources, but I hope that Phys Ed teachers will be able to start using what is there already.

The Common Core is asking all teachers to be Literacy Support Systems for students. If they can't read well, then everything they do will be more difficult. Those of us that are doing this work honor the fact that training in literacy may not have taken place in some of the content areas, thus we are providing as much relevant information as possible as this gets rolled out to teachers.

Hopefully, teachers will find something useful here!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

New Web Stuff 11/06/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Thursday, November 3, 2011

New Web Stuff 11/04/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

New Web Stuff 11/02/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.