What is Common Core?
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The Common Core ELA standards encompass Reading Informational Texts, Reading Literature, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language. All North Carolina public school students will be evaluated on these standards. These standards in full can be found here.
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What is Understanding by Design?
Understanding by Design (UbD) was developed by these awesome guys named Grant P. Wiggins and Jay McTighe; it is a method of planning curriculum that begins with the end in mind. Basically what that means is teachers start with the content standards that students must master in a course. Lots of work is done figuring out what students need to know and be able to do for each of these standards. Standards are then grouped under Big Ideas, that are transferable and ever-present. These big ideas are then linked to Enduring Understandings, which are things that relate to the Big Idea that the teacher wants the students to come away knowing fifty years from now. These Enduring Understandings are also transferable across subject areas and grades. Then, teachers use the Enduring Understandings to develop several Essential Questions that will be returned to throughout the course of the unit (Example: Big Idea-Relationships; Enduring Understanding-Relationships change over time; Essential Question-Why do relationships change over time?). Below is a document that goes through the process of UbD in a nutshell.
What is Standards Based Grading?
Standards based grading is based on research done by Marzano. I will be using his ideas and methodologies, and incorporating them as much as possible.