Center for Standards, Assessment, and Accountability

Grade Level: Elementary School (K-5)

Video: Using a Learning Progression to Support Self-Assessment and Writing about Themes in Literature: Small Group Work (3-5)

This video shows a teacher incorporating self-assessment into her lesson. The teacher is trying to move students toward CCSS 4.1 and 4.2 in reading literature, which refers to explaining specific details and examples from a text and determining a theme or central message. The teacher asks students to place their work along a writing learning progression where they think it […]

Video: Preparation for Fraction Multiplication

This video shows students participating in a relevant and worthwhile task which provides them with an opportunity to deeply learn the skills and content that are goals of the lesson. In particular, the students learn through engaging in productive discourse. The students engage in discourse when they need to come to consensus on a solution to a word problem. In […]

The Inquiry Project: Seeing the World Through a Scientist’s Eyes

The Inquiry Project is a grades 3-5 curriculum that involves students in investigations about matter. A major part of the project consists of involving students in collaborative work. The project’s website highlights curricular design and implementation tools for teachers, including instructional planning, formative assessment, and professional development. Educators are presented with a number of case […]

Changes in the Expertise of ESL Professionals: Knowledge and Action in an Era of New Standards

This professional paper published by TESOL discusses the shifting landscape surrounding the new Common Core Standards (CCSS) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and their implications for building and enacting ESL teacher expertise. The authors explain the challenges and the possibilities associated with the new Standards for the ESL profession in the K-12 context, […]

Overview of the Common Core State Standards Initiatives for ELLs

The purpose of this brief from TESOL is to provide an overview of the policies behind the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards. The paper outlines some initiatives that are in place (as of the time of publication) to address the needs of English language learners (ELLs) in relation to the […]

TextProject Word Pictures

The main goal of TextProject Word Pictures is to help English Language Learners (ELLs) connect key words to concepts they may already know. It provides QuickReads, Literature Words, Content Area Words, and Core Vocabulary.