The long awaited and much feared (by students and teachers alike) new English Language Arts Tests were taken by 3 – 8 graders in NYS. The new standardized tests of the seemingly sweeping changes to national education standards known as Common Core were the buzz of the teaching community for months. If at all possible, guidance to educators on the content of these tests was at once plentiful and scarce. The thing with standardized tests, as anyone who has studied for the SAT can attest, test practice is just as, if not more so, important as study of the material. Unfortunately, despite the massive effort, funds, and resources that were invested into this vast change of national standards, not one complete sample test was provided to classrooms.
Test guidance came in the form of this. A few sample exercises that highlight the change in direction. The passages for the ELA were dry, boring, and quite complicated. The math questions were long-winded.
From the NYSED State Assessments Website:
The sample questions are teaching tools for educators and can be shared freely with students and parents. They are designed to help illuminate the way the Common Core should drive instruction and how students will be assessed starting in the 2012-13 school year.
These sample questions set just about every middle school teacher and consequently their students into prolonged anxiety.
So how did the real test turn out?
Thus far I only had had access to the 7 & 8 grades’ ELA test and even there just the Book 1. The test did not in my view turn out as scary as the sample questions suggested. The texts were accessible, somewhat engaging. They were on average longer than in the past, but all in all appropriate.
The questions were varied and, at this first glance, pretty well crafted. I will need a time extension to “compare and contrast” each question with those in the previous years. 😉
11th and 12th grade Eng. Lit.: be prepared to discuss Orwell’s choice of genre/types represented by the characters through Chapter 2/read Wiki article on The Third of May 1808 by Goya through “Iconography and Invention”; try to make a connection between the foreground figures and what you have read so far in AF.
9th grade Eng. Comp.: essay due.
AP Psych.: be up-to-date on basic brain architecture.
9th grade Eng. Lit.: you need to have read through p.84 in F451.
The field of education is truly exciting in today’s everchanging world. Technological innovations are almost commonplace; nascent technologies appear one after another. Technology doesn’t just affect itself; new technologies often change the paradigm completely. Things that may have been impossible just a few years ago are coming within reach at lightning speeds. New and ongoing discoveries provide perfect breeding grounds for education that is exploratory, creative and fun. Students (and not only students) have opportunities for real global impact. Now isn’t that exciting?
Recent inventions such as 3D Printing are still in early developmental phases. These technologies are open to new ideas from anyone who’s got some. Here’s a recent one that caught my attention:
Barobo– a spinoff from UC Davis – developed a modular robot – Mobot – for use in K to 12 education. The latest update to the kit is to give the user the ability to 3D print the plastic components. A powerful combo for STEM education: cutting edge tech such as 3D Printing and Modular Robotics.
In a recent article, an 11th grade Calgary high school student, Sarthak Sinha, offers advice to other high schoolers on how to succeed in school. Sarthak Sinha has been doing graduate level stem cell research (another powerful innovation) since 9th grade. He writes: “We live in some of the most exciting eras of human history and itʼll be a shame if we walk away by saying that we couldnʼt contribute to the fast pace of progress.”
Discovery as well as self discovery makes learning really exciting.
12th grade: there will be a practice Regents listening section tomorrow. Read the second Regents handout. Chapter 1 of Animal Farm must have been read by 4/8.
9th grade Eng. Comp.: finish rumspringa essay.
AP Psych: absentees must get notes missed today or subsequent lessons will not make sense.
11th grade: chapter 1 of Animal Farm must have been read by 4/8. Handout also due 4/8 on Scottsboro trials. Read the first Regents handout.
