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Read and understand your standards here!

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How do you know if a text is complex enough? How can students demonstrate their understanding of complex texts?

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Want a sample of a complex text at your grade level? Informational and Literature? Check this out:

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What does exemplary student work look like in response to the standards? Here it is!

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Read and Understand the Next Generation Science Standards

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Need help create aligned science tasks for your classroom?

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The Classroom Sample Tasks blend content, practices, and concepts from both the NGSS and the Common Core State Standards. Teachers across the disciplines have collaborated to write sample tasks, which are the result of a vision of integrating science, engineering, and mathematics for classroom use.

Currently, nine draft middle and high school tasks are available below. Additional tasks, including those for elementary grade levels, will be added as they become available. Educators are encouraged to modify these tasks for their needs and to let us know how they can be improved (via the website contact form). It important to note that these tasks are drafts and that they will be revised as we receive feedback from users.

Introduction and Overview: Learn more about the tasks and their development process and criteria.

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The Classroom Sample Tasks blend content, practices, and concepts from both the NGSS and the Common Core State Standards. Teachers across the disciplines have collaborated to write sample tasks, which are the result of a vision of integrating science, engineering, and mathematics for classroom use.

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What is the role of phenomena in science instruction? This is critical to your understanding of good science instruction:

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This briefresource about phenomena was developed for educators, and describes how phenomena can be used in NGSS classrooms to drive teaching and learning.

In addition, the three minute video interview below with Brian Reiser introduces phenomena and their connection to the NGSS and three-dimensional learning:
Resource about Engineering Problems External Resources About Phenomena

Qualities of a good anchor phenomenon- a resource from the Research + Practice Collaboratory

www.ngssphenomena.com - a collection of interesting phenomena that could be instructionally productive

Video discussing phenomena in the context of evaluating instructional materials. From Achieve and the Teaching Channel.

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This briefresource about phenomena was developed for educators, and describes how phenomena can be used in NGSS classrooms to drive teaching and learning.

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The NGSS are organized into groups of standards. Read what the "Storyline" is for each grade cluster in science so that the timeline makes sense for you and the students!

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NGSS Storylines | Next Generation Science Standards

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Yes! Scroll to the bottom of this link to see videos which show effective science instruction which is aligned with these standards!

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Video Hub | Next Generation Science Standards

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Here are the standards for our littlest learners!

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What do the standards look like in student terms?

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List of goals, standards, and benchmarks

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With teacher assistance, converse with peers and adults (with more than one back-and-forth exchange) in small- and whole-group situations about age-appropriate topics (e.g., Teacher: "How many of you played in the snow yesterday?" Child: "I did. I went sledding." Another child: "Me too! I saw you there."

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All Tip Sheets are available in English and Spanish (español). Most Tip Sheets are available in Polish (Polski). Selected Tip Sheets are available in Korean (한국어), Chinese (中文 (中国), Arabic (العربية), Russian (Русский) and French (Français).

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What does it LOOK like for a child to meet an early learning benchmark

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These videos were filmed in a variety of settings, including programs at public universities, community colleges, and private homes. For each video, we provide background information, a transcript, and a description of how various 2013 Illinois Early Learning and Development benchmarks are met.

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Read and Understand the English Language Development Standards

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WIDA English Development (ELD) Standards

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WIDA's Standards outline the progression of English language development and exemplify how to teach academic language within the context of content area instruction.

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Read your CAN DO descriptors!

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WIDA develops and provides proven tools and support to help multilingual learners, and their educators, succeed.

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What does it look like to intervene with a struggling English Language Learner?

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Read and Understand the Fine Arts Standards

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Producing (media arts): Realizing and presenting artistic ideas and work.

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Need an example of a cornerstone task for media arts? Check this out:

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Media Arts Model Cornerstone Assessments | National Core Arts Standards

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What are some examples of student work in the area of music?

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Music Student Work | National Core Arts Standards

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Read and Understand your math standards

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Exemplar Lessons Aligned with Math Standards

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Exemplar Lessons Aligned with Math Standards

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Need some support designing standards aligned lessons for math? Here are some great ones!

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In an effort to identify and shine a spotlight on emerging examples, Achieve established a process to select and train the EQuIP Peer Review Panel, a group of experienced reviewers to evaluate the quality and alignment of lessons and units to the CCSS.

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Here is a list of math vocabulary and definitions found in the standards

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Yes, but what does good math instruction LOOK like? Here it is!

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Here are some good resources to support your self-evaluation!

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Read and Understand your social science standards

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Looking to lead your students in inquiry in social studies? Here is a way to find great inquiries already designed by grade level and topic!

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This inquiry leads students through an investigation of the various roles of professionals who work in the community. While the focus of this inquiry is limited primarily to first responders, teachers could expand the discussion to include other community helpers or "school helpers" such as the custodial staff, cafeteria staff, librarians, etc.

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This inquiry generator will lead you through developing your own inquiry

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We are sad to say that the IDM Generator shut down on December 31, 2020. We launched the Generator in 2015 as a tool to support inquiry writing, and have been so pleased to see how you all have used this tool. We had a great run with over 11,000 users and thousands of original inquiries. Alas all good things must come to an end, but not to worry are archiving all 95 of the public inquires on the Generator here. Stay tuned for updates.

Thanks for all of your inquiry energy and creative instructional ideas. We're working on new ways to share your work, so make sure to hold onto those inquiries. We'll be in touch soon with our new plans on c3teachers.org. Stay tuned!

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We are sad to say that the IDM Generator shut down on December 31, 2020. We launched the Generator in 2015 as a tool to support inquiry writing, and have been so pleased to see how you all have used this tool. We had a great run with over 11,000 users and thousands of original inquiries.

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Read and Understand your PE and Health Standards

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Interested in some new and interesting ideas for standards-aligned lessons in PE/Health? Check these out:

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FREE Physical Education Tools and Activities

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Free #Physed activity ideas, classroom resources and physical activity calendars in the PE teacher's toolbox every month to download. Available for early childhood physical education, elementary physical education and secondary sch

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Is it really different from what I have been doing?

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Is it really different from what I have been doing?

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Not sure if the lessons you designed in the past will be rigorous enough to meet the requirements of these standards?

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Introduction

The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy build on the best of existing standards and reflect the skills and knowledge students will need to succeed in college, career, and life. Understanding how the standards differ from previous standards-and the necessary shifts they call for-is essential to implementing the standards well.

The following are key shifts called for by the Common Core:

1. Regular practice with complex texts and their academic language
Rather than focusing solely on the skills of reading and writing, the ELA/literacy standards highlight the growing complexity of the texts students must read to be ready for the demands of college, career, and life. The standards call for a staircase of increasing complexity so that all students are ready for the demands of college- and career-level reading no later than the end of high school. The standards also outline a progressive development of reading comprehension so that students advancing through the grades are able to gain more from what they read.

Closely related to text complexity and inextricably connected to reading comprehension is a focus on academic vocabulary: words that appear in a variety of content areas (such as ignite and commit). The standards call for students to grow their vocabularies through a mix of conversation, direct instruction, and reading. They ask students to determine word meanings, appreciate the nuances of words, and steadily expand their range of words and phrases. Vocabulary and conventions are treated in their own strand not because skills in these areas should be handled in isolation, but because their use extends across reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

Because the standards are the roadmap for successful classrooms, and recognizing that teachers, school districts, and states need to decide on the journey to the destination, they intentionally do not include a required reading list. Instead, they include numerous sample texts to help teachers prepare for the school year and allow parents and students to know what to expect during the year.

The standards include certain critical types of content for all students, including classic myths and stories from around the world, foundational U.S. documents, seminal works of American literature, and the writings of Shakespeare. The standards appropriately defer the majority of decisions about what and how to teach to states, districts, schools, and teachers.

2. Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from texts, both literary and informational
The Common Core emphasizes using evidence from texts to present careful analyses, well-defended claims, and clear information. Rather than asking students questions they can answer solely from their prior knowledge and experience, the standards call for students to answer questions that depend on their having read the texts with care.

The reading standards focus on students' ability to read carefully and grasp information, arguments, ideas, and details based on evidence in the text. Students should be able to answer a range of text-dependent questions, whose answers require inferences based on careful attention to the text.

Frequently, forms of writing in K-12 have drawn heavily from student experience and opinion, which alone will not prepare students for the demands of college, career, and life. Though the standards still expect narrative writing throughout the grades, they also expect a command of sequence and detail that are essential for effective argumentative and informative writing. The standards' focus on evidence-based writing along with the ability to inform and persuade is a significant shift from current practice.

3. Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction
Students must be immersed in information about the world around them if they are to develop the strong general knowledge and vocabulary they need to become successful readers and be prepared for college, career, and life. Informational texts play an important part in building students' content knowledge. Further, it is vital for students to have extensive opportunities to build knowledge through texts so they can learn independently.

In K-5, fulfilling the standards requires a 50-50 balance between informational and literary reading. Informational reading includes content-rich nonfiction in history/social studies, sciences, technical studies, and the arts. The K-5 standards strongly recommend that texts-both within and across grades-be selected to support students in systematically developing knowledge about the world.

In grades 6-12, there is much greater attention on the specific category of literary nonfiction, which is a shift from traditional standards. To be clear, the standards pay substantial attention to literature throughout K-12, as it constitutes half of the reading in K-5 and is the core of the work of 6-12 ELA teachers. Also in grades 6-12, the standards for literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects ensure that students can independently build knowledge in these disciplines through reading and writing. Reading, writing, speaking, and listening should span the school day from K-12 as integral parts of every subject.

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The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy build on the best of existing standards and reflect the skills and knowledge students will need to succeed in college, career, and life. Understanding how the standards differ from previous standards-and the necessary shifts they call for-is essential to implementing the standards well.

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Not sure if the lessons you have used in the past will work with these standards?

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Key Shifts in Mathematics | Common Core State Standards Initiative

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The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics build on the best of existing standards and reflect the skills and knowledge students will need to succeed in college, career, and life. Understanding how the standards differ from previous standards-and the necessary shifts they call for-is essential to implementing them.