Hello everyone!
For the last two days, I have been in Springfield writing fourth math items that align to the Common Core Curriculum Standards. In the next few years, you will see a huge change in what is taught at which levels in mathematics (not to mention English Language Arts). Some of what I taught at the middle level is now in the fourth grade curriculum. The good news is that the curriculum is supposed to allow for teachers to go more in depth with the content instead of teaching and moving on so material can be "covered" before the beginning of March.
District 87 teachers have been working on the transition to the Common Core Curriculum Standards for a few years. Our students are still assessed on the 1997 Illinois Learning Standards as part of ISAT in March. Discussions are happening at the state and national levels, as the Core Content Standards are being adopted by many states, with alterations here and there depending on the state. In your student's experiences in public school, and in most private schools in the state as well, from now until high school graduation, major changes will be witnessed. The testing is slated to be expanded throughout the year instead of happening in just one week. Details are being hammered out as to how that will work, as the testing being suggested might happen on computers. The times are a-changin' for sure!
I wish I could tell you education is an exact science. It isn't. We deal with tiny humans with minds of their own. Education is a science that changes (just think of how you were taught concepts and how your student is taught the same concepts...some things change, some stay the same). I can tell you that the main target of student achievement never changes.
I have been out of the classroom working on several initiatives this year. We are revamping D87 elementary curriculum in order to align with the Common Core. We will be changing report cards to reflect these changes.
The teacher appraisal process is also changing, and huge changes started taking place this year. I have been invested in these changes for four years now. I firmly believe that the process is a better one that allows for teacher reflection and for evaluation to consider all that a teacher does, rather than just look at one lesson on one day out of 180 days in a school year.
Yep, there's one more thing! I have been spending this year as an administrative intern. In May, I will be graduating with my second Master's degree. My first, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, focused on Curriculum, Technology, and Education Reform. My second, from Concordia University Chicago, is in Educational Leadership. That means some days I might be substituting for Mrs. Lammers or running a school event. I get to work very closely with the PBIS committee at Irving in my role as intern.
Through all of these activities, when I am gone from the classroom, two very positive things are true. One, 99% of the time I have the same guest teacher, Mrs. Carole Kalmes. Mrs. Kalmes is a retired Irving teacher who knows fourth grade curriculum quite well, and she gives students a perspective of their learning that sometimes does not occur to me. Second, Mrs. Svob and I co-teach literacy block. When I am gone, she usually remains, and instruction can continue uninterrupted. This has been a great thing. We are seeing good achievement scores from our students in the co-taught class, and the students seem to enjoy the range of choices they are given.
Thanks for reading this far! I felt that my class deserved an explanation for the amount of times I must be gone this year. I tell them each time that I would rather be with them, and I mean that 100%! They are the reason we all do what we do. They are having an outstanding year, and each day I am gone, I miss them tremendously!
Mrs. Plato
