Any person who has taken the requisite foreign language classes in high school can understand how difficult it is to learn a foreign language. But now imagine you are back in high school and you are also required to take English, math, science, and history all taught in that same foreign language! That is what…
After reading The Diary of Anne Frank, a student is asked, “Who is Anne Frank?” To answer the question, the student simply recalls the information he or she memorized from the reading. With the implementation of Common Core, students are expected to become critical thinkers instead of just recalling facts and ideas from text.…
For more than a decade, the DataWORKS tagline has been “All students successfully taught grade-level work every day.” This is an important concept that we truly believe in, as it places the same expectations on all students, in every classroom. Every classroom has a diverse student population, however. Some students need additional support before tackling…
The Common Core State Standards include literacy standards that are to be used in history, science, and other technical subjects. These standards focus on developing literacy outside of the English classroom beginning in the 6th grade. There are three major components to these: Reading in History; Reading in Science and Technical Subjects; and Writing…
“Huh?” “What was that?” “Can you repeat that one more time?” “I wasn’t listening; can you say that again?” Teachers frequently hear these types of responses, from all different types of students, during all types of classes. Students that do not pay attention, and do not listen closely during instruction, do not retain information.…
For more than 50 years, success gurus in the business world have been urging employers and employees to work smarter not harder. In business, it often means to think big, delegate more, and let technology work for you. It’s often recommended for people who are overwhelmed with details, facing multiple deadlines, and feeling stressed out…
Anyone who has been teaching for a few years knows that teachers face huge amounts of stress. It comes unremittingly from 20-120 students all demanding attention, and from administrative requests for meetings and paperwork, and parental requests about how Johnny’s doing. In the midst of this, a teacher has to prepare daily lessons, correct assignments,…
Amidst all the hoopla about Common Core standards, and how to teach the lessons so students are ready for the new assessments, there is a quiet but very significant understanding that underlies all the standards. This key value, which all the standards are designed to achieve, is proficient practice. The standards want the students to…
Ever since I was in teacher training classes in college many decades ago, there has been a raging debate about whether education should be Teacher-Centered or Student-Centered. There is some research both ways. But I would like to suggest that the answer is NEITHER. The Teacher-Centered Approach To arrive at this conclusion, we have to…
In a previous post, we discussed the first five ways that Common Core lessons are different from the traditional approach teachers have used. What we saw was that Common Core doesn’t look different to the casual observer in a classroom, but from a teacher’s point of view, it is dramatically different. The big difference is…