This year was our first year implementing the Common Core Standards and a reoccurring word that is used when describing the standards is they are more rigorous than the previous state standards.
In Louisiana there has been growing opposition to the standards by both parents and politicians. One common statement that has been made is that the standards are common and they are not as rigorous as the previous state standards. Rigor is understood in the educational arena as instruction that challenges a students ability to think. So, learning multiplication facts is rather easy if a child sees them often and has a good memory.
I have been teaching for 14 years and this year I can say that implementing the Common Core State Standards did not only increase the rigor in my instruction but it also increased the amount of thought that I put into planning my lessons because the skills were more complex when taught to younger students.
For example, increasing the amount of non fiction text that students in grades k-2 are exposed to increases the rigor of instruction because it exposes students to tier 3 words, or content specific words, which help to build their vocabulary early rather than late in elementary. Many critics of the Common Core Standards see this shift as unnecessary because the belief is that students in k-2 should be reading and hearing fun stories because school is suppose to be fun. Also, I have heard educators complain about teaching students multiple ways to add, subtract, multiply or divide.
This practice also increases the rigor of simple math lessons because it challenges the students ability to determine when a strategy is appropriate or not appropriate to use during computation.
Whether you love or hate the Common Core State Standards one statement that cannot be made is that the standards are not rigorous enough or do not challenge the students thought process. As a TAP Master Teacher one statement that always stuck with me is that thinking is the process and student work should be the product of thinking. Thanks for your perspective. Robyn Jackson is passionate about building better schools. Jackson combines her experience as an English teacher and middle school administrator and her work in thousands of schools and districts to help teachers and administrators develop rigorous instructional programs that provide students with the support and motivation they need to reach or exceed the standards and helps refocus vision, mission, and core values to build better schools.
She is the author of 10 books, host of the School Leadership Reimagined podcast, and an internationally recognized keynote speaker and consultant. Mindsteps Inc. The Minimalist Teacher Print Book. By Tamera Musiowsky-Borneman et al. Member Book. How to Plan Rigorous Instruction. About If we want all our students to become better thinkers and learners, we must design rigorous learning experiences that go beyond helping them simply master standards.
For teachers, slogging through lessons that students loathe without a clear way to make texts meaningful, engaging, and comprehensible is ultimately defeating. Luckily, there are a few ways to overcome the challenges of complex text and help make rigorous content motivating for students. Collaboration makes reading more enjoyable and incentivizes higher-quality work. In an analysis of over 55 different literacy program, Best Evidence researchers concluded that the most effective programs emphasized cooperative learning and relationships between students and educators.
Social connections are a key motivator for adolescents and drive them to persevere through challenging assignments that they would otherwise abandon. Increasing the amount of discussion and collaboration is a worthwhile effort, particularly given that the amount of classroom time spent on whole-class discussion in middle and high school is measurable in seconds per day Fisher, Frey, and Hattie, One way to make this happen is by adapting a digital reading platform that allows for in-line collaboration.
Students can have discussions right inside the text using shared annotations, thereby increasing their enjoyment of the text while giving their teacher valuable insight into what they find interesting or confusing. The goal is to give students an opportunity to share ideas and feel like they are part of a scholarly community rather than having to struggle on their own. Rigorous text provides many challenges: unfamiliar vocabulary, references to people, places, and events that students are unaware of, and complex syntax and structure.
Chances are that without a strong background in physics or economic theory, you will quickly be lost in these texts and desperately want to put them down. Even with all the best comprehension strategies at your disposal, these texts will be a challenge for you, if not altogether inaccessible. Students tackling rigorous content need support in order to make sense of what they read. They need to build up the necessary background knowledge , preview key vocabulary that might be unfamiliar to them, and have access to help when they need it.
Being there with students as they read is critical because it unveils the actual process of creating meaning from the text. This is very different from the learning model where students read on their own and then create meaning in the classroom through shared activities. We know this question is easier to answer for some topics than for others. Jekyll and Mr.
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