Week 2
Learning Task 2:
Common Core Standards
The Common Core is a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy. These learning goals outline what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade. By having all states follow the same set of standards students across the country can be attaining similar goals at about the same time. It keeps teachers focused on what they need to accomplish and allows educators to set effective goals for students.
Learning Task 3:
The five key features of the common core ELA standards include reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language.
Reading:
The reading standards focus on the level of students’ reading material and the skills they use to read. The goal is to increase text complexity from a beginner’s level to college and career readiness level. Students also have to show progress in their reading skills, like being able to make more connections in their reading, using textual evidence, and more. Teachers should integrate technology, like digital text or e-text, to help students
become better readers.
Writing:
The writing standards are divided by general writing skills that students should master, and writing skills that are applicable to specific writing genres. In these standards, the importance of the reading-writing connection is also stressed on. Additionally, helping students enhance their research skills is a strong focus here, and new literacies should be incorporated in the classroom.
Speaking and Listening:
The speaking and listening standards focus on developing students’ oral communication and interpersonal skills. It is important for students to work well together and learn how to be good listeners. These standards stress on helping students integrate information from different sources, evaluate it, and use media and visuals for communicative purposes.
Language:
The language standards are divided into the ‘rules’ of the English language, and the way this language can be crafted with informed choice. There are also vocabulary standards,
which help students understand words and phrases and acquire new vocabulary.
Learning Task 4:
I interviewed Sarah Green, a Pre-k teacher, to
find out how she incorporates technology in her classroom.
Sarah explained that because her students are very young, she uses basic technology appropriate for their age. She uses the technology to facilitate the teaching of ELA and other subjects. There is a listening center set up in her classroom and students can plug in headphones and listen to audio books to improve their listening and responding skills. Sarah also brings in videos and songs to create audio/visual enriched lessons.
Her favorite technological resource is the Teaching Strategies Gold Technology. According to Sarah, this is an online tool that has many facets which promotes professional development, student assessment, lesson planning, and collaboration. Sarah uses this technology resource to assess and evaluate students. She can upload videos and student work, as well as record anecdotal/observational data and assessments. She then uses the information to create a student profile so parents and future teachers can track the progress of each child. She explained that this technology organizes everything so her lessons are structured, student based, and differentiated. Sarah cooperates with parents and other educators consistently and using this technology helps her in all facets of curriculum, and specifically with ELA instruction, development, and collaboration.
