In this AMLE Magazine article, Joanne Kelleher, an assistant principal in Long Island, New York, offers a succinct list of the key changes being introduced by the Common Core.
In Math:
- Favoring depth over breadth;
- Working toward automaticity of basic functions;
- Finding the balance between practice and understanding.
In ELA:
- Resetting the ratio of fiction and nonfiction;
- Incorporating close readings of complex texts;
- Including more academic vocabulary in lessons.
During a recent visit to an industrial arts/technology class in her middle school, Kelleher realized that it contained a number of lessons for Common Core ELA implementation:
• Learning is messy. “In the technology education classroom,” she says, “there’s the cutting, the sanding, the sawing, the drilling, and the finishing. You can count on paint spills, sawdust, and mismeasurements… The ELA CCSS require that students engage in critical thinking: analyzing, interpreting, delineating, assessing, and evaluating. As students grapple with new ideas, they argue, explain, and justify, building support for their ideas from within the text. This idea development can get loud and messy.” It’s messy for teachers too, but in the end, “something wonderful starts taking shape.”
• Learning is noisy. In the technology classroom, it’s hammers, saws, and power tools. In the ELA classroom, ideas are being expressed, explored, and argued, and sometimes it’s organized chaos – and noisy.
• Learning is autonomous. “All around the technology classroom, students move about as if on a personal quest,” says Kelleher. They find the right tool and put it to work: “creating the product is an independent, hands-on/minds-on experience. And so it should be in the ELA classroom. Students need to increasingly read and write on their own, with real purpose.”
• Mistakes happen. Technology education teachers routinely order enough materials to allow for 20-25 percent waste; for them, mistakes are an integral part of the learning process. In ELA classes, says Kelleher, “We should expect mistakes and welcome them, because mistakes are students’ way of showing us what they (and we) still need to learn.”
• Craftsmanship matters. Skill and artistry are built into every successfully completed project, and the same is true when students read first-rate texts and write their own masterpieces. Kelleher points to Common Core Standard 4 (interpreting words and phrases), Standard 5 (analyzing text structure), and Standard 6 (point of view and purpose). “These elements are the craft,” she concludes. “Craft grabs your attention. Craft leaves you in awe. Craft invites you to imagine that your work can be better.”
“Common Core ELA: Lessons from Tech Ed Class” by Joanne Kelleher in AMLE Magazine, September 2014 (Vol. 2, #2, p. 21-24), www.amle.org; Kelleher can be reached at kelleherj@kpcsd.org.
Technology & Engineering Education
East Greenbush CSD
Howard L. Goff Middle School
35 Gilligan Rd.
East Greenbush, NY 12061