Ready for College and Career? Achieving the Common Core Standards and Beyond Through Deeper, Student-Centered Learning
From the publishers: “This report finds that a range of cross-cutting skills like communication, innovation and self-regulation are crucial to student success. Student-centered approaches to learning can equip students with a range of skills necessary to succeed in the Common Core, college, and career.”
The purposes of this article are stated in both its title introduction. Drawing substantially from well-known learning researchers, the authors successfully make their key point: the Common Core State Standards require both new instructional and new assessment strategies. While much of the information may seem familiar, the authors have done an excellent job of illustrating it in helpful methods, including a chart that shows the exaggerated student performance on state tests compared to state performance on an independent measure, the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Communications quality is not a strength. Photographs, for example, are in low-contract black and white, while wording is rather lengthy at times. Nonetheless, the authors make good points, especially about the value of student motivation and the need to make important instructional shifts to support more rigorous standards. Utility should be reasonably high. While evidence of effectiveness is not addressed, the authors’ original ideas and evidence-supported recommendations suggest a potential positive impact on learning.