Spiral when used as a noun:
- the path of a point in a plane moving around a central point while continuously receding from or approaching it
- a continuous spreading and accelerating increase or decrease
Spiral when used as an adjective:
- winding around a center or pole and gradually receding from or approaching it
- of or relating to the advancement to higher levels through a series of cyclical movements
As teachers, our goals
are all based on one thing- to help our students go to college or have a great
career after they graduate. No matter if we teach first grade or twelfth, we
want to aid our students in being successful.
Yet when I have conversations with professors at colleges or business leaders
I tend to hear the same things: “These students are not prepared for college.” “They
don’t know how to form opinions on topics independently and seem to wait for me
to give answers or do the work for them.” “How do they not know how to take
notes?” “Why will they not follow simple directions?” The list goes on and on. I want to scream at theses professors, “What
do you mean they aren’t ready for college?!” All I can do is scratch my head because I know
that I have been doing my best to teach my students to be independent thinkers,
spent time with them on different strategies to use to take notes and taught
until I was exhausted… so what is really going on?
The Common Core State
Standards were written to with the goal to make college and career ready
students upon graduation. Don’t you love that? I just want to stand up and say,
“And what, exactly, were the other standards written for? To prepare them for light
saber fighting?!” The CCSS ensure that each student will graduate with the skills,
strategies, vocabulary and concepts which will help them transition easily into
their next path whether it be to college or to a career. The standards were
created from the top down meaning that the creators looked at what would make
our students successful in college as well as in the work force and spiraled
the standards so that knowledge is built from year to year with the end in
mind. The level of difficulty within the standards is embedded in the content
of each succeeding grade-specific standard. Take a look at this…
See what it looks like?
You can analyze the same standards from kindergarten all the way to the twelfth
grade and see how the difficulty increases with each. Notice the wording in the
standards. In kindergarten they are already
asked to form an opinion about something and show that opinion through drawing,
dictation and writing. As the standard progresses through elementary school,
students are building on that concept of supporting an opinion. What happens
when you get to the sixth grade though? The
opinions progress to arguments. Students have to know what a claim is now and
support their arguments with claims. Now jump to the twelfth grade. The
standard is specific in that students have to have precise, knowledgeable
claim(s), establish the significance of the claim(s)…. and so on. As the
students move along through the course of learning, they study the same concepts
each year but the expectations increase in increments of complexity and
sophistication to ensure that they are mastering the skill.
To me, this is a
comfort. No matter where you are on this course of learning you have an impact
on each child’s learning and look how many partners you have in this that are
helping you. Kindergarten teachers probably have it the worst… they have to get
the party started!! By building our students’ knowledge bank every year we are
ensuring that they are ready for the next step whether they choose to go to
college or start their career right after they graduate. It is a comfort most
of all because we have focused on a major idea for 13 years and know that our
students have mastered it. We have pushed them along a little at a time with
baby steps that ensured that they have mastery. I can’t wait to hear what those
professors and business leaders have to say in a few years!
What are your thoughts
on the spiraling of the standards? How do you think this will cause us to adapt
our teaching? Can’t wait to hear from you!
