What’s going on in New York City today reflects what teachers across the country will be grappling with this year: They’re getting acquainted with the common standards, and figuring out how to translate them into instruction in their classrooms.
In the Big Apple today, every teacher is spending the day in training for the common core. The city set aside the day for professional development, one day before school begins, to spread citywide the work they’ve been piloting in 100 schools in the last year.
Just yesterday, we were talking about how educators are craving instructional resources for the common standards. In our bid to round up a sampling of what’s out there, we mentioned the New York state Department of Education’s common-core library. But you can take a look, also, at the digital library of resources New York City has assembled. It includes 90-minute lessons that model good common-core instruction, and demonstrate how teachers can evaluate student work.
The city is clearly making a priority of pairing the common-core instructional work with promoting its vision of what constitutes good teaching.