NEW PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COURSE Just released!

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS

Text Based Discussions in High School*

Explore the research-based strategy of facilitating text discussions that support the close reading, speaking, and listening skills called for in the English Language Arts/Literacy Common Core State Standards for grades 9-12.

Learn More!

*We suggest “ELA101H/Literacy Shifts in High School” as a reference for this course. To enroll in the ELA101H course CLICK HERE. You have full access to all courses in Pepper through the course directory.  There is always something new to learn in Pepper!

 New Course for Elementary Mathematics Coming Soon!

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Calling All Science Teachers--Common Core Lesson Plan Round-Up!

When you're thinking through the best ways of engaging your students, communicating and reinforcing concepts, helping them achieve mastery of new ideas and ways of thinking, and just plain getting excited about learning, it can help to have a little inspiration. Seeing what other teachers have done to develop creative, CCSS-aligned lesson plans, or looking through resource libraries to find interesting lesson plans can give your own planning an energy boost.

Here's a round-up of some websites that provide science teachers with CCSS-aligned ideas for the classroom. Look for other subjects/disciplines in future posts!

Check out these FREE SCIENCE LESSONS from AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science). You can filter your search by grade and content to find what you want more easily!

Who doesn't love cookies? This series of blog posts by science writer Bethany Brookshire is called COOKIE SCIENCE! She takes educators and students step-by-step through applied science, all in the name of finding cookies that taste better. If you're looking for student-friendly science news, don't miss the website, hosted by Society for Science & the Public.

MIT BLOSSOMS is a wonderful website with a focus on videos for classroom use. You can do a very focused search, including by content standard, and locate science video lessons--each of which is a complete resource, with teacher's guide and supporting materials. CLICK HERE to search by education standards!


Got students who are into sports? Then GO HERE to the Connect A Million Minds website to find science-friendly learning activities and games for kids. These would make great additions to lesson-plans.

Engineering and applied science lessons are free and searchable on TeachEngineering.org! You can browse across multiple categories or search by content standard. There are hands-on activities, lessons, and supporting materials!

For a big-picture look at how real science educators are making CCSS work in their classrooms, check out this Edutopia.org blog post, "Common Core in Action: How Two Science Teachers Are Implementing Common Core." Get tips, ideas, and best practices!

Finally, take a look at the Utah Education Network. They have easy-to-browse, free lesson plans that are aligned to Utah's Core (based on CCSS). CLICK HERE for K-6 science lessons. CLICK HERE for 7-12 science lessons!

Kick Off the New School Year--Fun Ideas to Get Off to a Good Start!

In some parts of the country, students have been back in the classroom for several weeks, while for others, the new academic year is just beginning. To help get you started, check out these articles, posts, and pins, and get inspired for the new school year! Make sure to remember not to lose sight of your own professional and personal development in the midst of the many demands and excitement of the new year.

Check out this Education World post on "Fun Activities to Get the School Year Off to a Good Start." Pick up some great ideas to help you set the tone in your classroom this year!

Take a look at this great article from Edutopia.org, and start "Preparing for your Best Year Ever"! The first tip on the list? "Dive deep into your own professional learning." Take advantage of the amazing professional development that Pepper has to offer!

Finally, just for fun, head to Pinterest.com for a fantastic collection of "Back to School Teaching Ideas"--you can find resources, materials, and fun activities for your students!

Good luck, and have a great year!

LET’S COLLABORATE!

We’re excited to give you even more opportunity to communicate, be social, and stay informed with our new notification alerts!

Log into your Pepper Dashboard and look for the conversation bubble on the top right.  The number indicated in the bubble will alert you that a peer or a coach is reaching out.

Receive and View Notifications About:

·        Any new personal messages

·        A new post to one of your discussion topics

·        Collaborative activity in your coursework portfolio

·        You’ve been added to a personal Pepper network 

Receive and Send Messages in Pepper:

·        Communicate and collaborate directly with other Pepper participants!

·        Within the People search, click on the message bubble icon to open up an individual dialogue with an instructional coach or peer.

·        You will receive a notification when they respond and can continue collaborating.

ALSO – please don’t forget that Google Hangouts are included in each course, and a great place to collaborate live!

Please contact Pepper Support with any questions, we hope you find these new tools helpful in your Pepper teaching and learning adventure.

Learning-Friendly Classroom Design!

It's no secret that the spaces and places in which we live and learn can have an enormous impact on our mood, our attention span, our ability to focus, and our social interactions. So it's incredibly important for educators to think about the way their classrooms encourage students to be engaged in the learning process. This is particularly true as educators integrate education technology into classroom spaces in ever more organic and thoroughgoing ways.

If you're interested in challenging yourself to create a learning space that's more "brain-friendly," then join the Classroom Cribs Challenge! There are four easy steps that will help you rethink and redesign your learning space to enhance the learning experience, and then share your new ideas with others.

Take a look at this video by interior designer-turned-teacher Erin Klein, where she talks about what it means to design a classroom space that really helps students engage with learning.

BRAND NEW! Check out these AMAZING Math courses that just hit PEPPER!

Two fantastic new middle school mathematics professional development courses are available in Pepper now. Take a look at the courses and their descriptions and get excited about the opportunities to be prepared and ready to work with your students as the new school year kicks into gear! Click on the course titles to learn even more about what you'll discover if you sign up!

Getting Started With Expressions and Equations (6-8)

Take a deep dive into the Expressions and Equations domain and the clusters of standards it includes at each grade level. Study the clusters of standards for each grade, work on math tasks related to each cluster, and learn more about the mathematics education research behind the CCSS.

Implementing Expressions and Equations (6-8).

Continue your journey into Expressions and Equations by understanding how to implement the domain effectively in your classroom. This course is designed to follow Getting Started with Expressions and Equations course.

Happiness and Learning--Exploring the Connections

It's easy for educators, parents, and even students today to think of education solely in terms of metrics, data, measurable results, assessments, and content standards. And it's true that these things do matter in a world where career- and college-readiness are important, and where being well-prepared gives students a competitive job market advantage in the world outside the classroom.

Yet education is also about so much more than that. As philosopher and ethicist Nel Nodings states in her 2003 book Happiness and Education, "Happiness and education are, properly, intimately connected. Happiness should be an aim of education, and a good education should contribute significantly to personal and collective happiness."

How can educators help their students better understand and experience the real joy and happiness that can come with exploring new ideas, venturing out into new areas of learning, using knowledge to help others, and making sense of the world in which they live?

Here's a great place to begin: "Exploring the Idea of Happiness as Part of Schoolwork," by journalist Katrina Schwartz. She takes a closer look at New Tech Network's "Global Happiness Project," which aims to help teachers and students explore the many ways that happiness impacts their daily lives and their communities, both in and out of the classroom.

Interested in a more in-depth look? Then check out the article "Happiness and Education: Theory, Practice, and Possibility" by researcher Mark K. Smith, writing for pedagogy website infed.org. He explores what happiness means, and argues that education cannot give students what they really need without a connection to happiness.

Project-Based Learning and the Common Core!

Many educators already have made a shift in the direction of Project-Based Learning (PBL) in recent years as research has shown just how effective it can be in broadening and deepening students' knowledge-base and in helping students develop connections between concepts and applications, and in improving their communication skills.

You may be wondering, though, just how project-based learning might intersect with the Common Core State Standards, and what resources might be out there to help educators ensure that their project-based learning strategies are aligned with CCSS.

This blog post from Edutopia.org, is a great place to start! In this post, "The Role of PBL in Making the Shift to Common Core," Sara Hallermann and John Larmer present six big ideas that help educators understand exactly how PBL and Common Core go hand-in-hand. The takeaway, as they explain, is that "Common Core has embedded within it some Big Ideas that shift the role of teachers to curriculum designers and managers of an inquiry process." PBL puts that inquiry process front-and-center, and encourages students to take ownership of what they're learning about.

For a more in-depth look at the connections between Common Core and PBL, you can check out this FREE PBL WEBINAR from ASCD.org. Led by Andrew Miller, the webinar explores the essential elements of PBL, and the best ways of ensuring that PBL units are aligned to Common Core. Be sure to check out the supporting resources, handouts, and slides!

Ed Tech and Early Learners

Most educators can agree that technology is here to stay, and that 21st-century classrooms and schools cannot afford to pretend otherwise, or they risk letting their students fall behind in an increasingly tech-integrated world. Yet the magnitude and the role of technology in learning--especially when it comes to preschoolers--are not always clear, and experts often have differing ideas about how much tech is too much tech for the earliest learners.

If you're interested in exploring some of the issues--from studies about the impact of screen time on early brain development to a list of best technology integration practices for educators working with early learners--then take a look at this article from Education Week: "Proper Role of Ed Tech in Pre-K a Rising Issue." It surveys some of the questions and challenges surrounding ed-tech and early learners, and offers links to some helpful resources.

Here are a few more places to read up on the issues:

• The nonprofit group Sesame Workshop offers a list of research-driven BEST PRACTICES for tablet use with preschool children.
• Check out the POSITION STATEMENT from the National Association for the Education of Young Children and the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media.
• Take a look at the FAQ PAGE on CHILDREN AND MEDIA from PBS.org.

These are important questions to be asking as educators--start exploring the research and the ideas, and get involved in the conversation!

College and Career Readiness--Ensuring Students' Success in the Future!

College and Career Readiness (CCR) is an enormously important part of the Common Core State Standards. As an educator, it can be difficult at times to find creative, effective ways to bridge the gap between the K-12 classroom and the world of post-secondary education and career training. One helpful strategy is to understand what it is that businesses and growth-oriented careers actually look for and need when they're hiring.

To get a better idea of what awaits your students when they leave the classroom, CHECK OUT BUSINESSANDEDUCATION.ORG, a fantastic collection of resources and information supported by achieve.org, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit education reform organization focused on making CCR an education priority.

On the website you will find extensive, well-supported information about CCR, along with an overview of CCR standards and links to business and career-related resources. You can even look at what's happening with the CCR initiatives in your state and see how you can integrate your classroom practices with these initiatives!

Who Knew Science Could be Tasty?! Food Chemistry and Cooking!

Whether you're looking for fun educational activities for your own kids as the summer winds down, or whether you're interested in finding ways to integrate exciting, hands-on learning into your science lessons in the coming school year, CHECK OUT THESE ACTIVITIES from PBS Learning Media, collected here on the KQED Website.

Building and using solar cookers to cook s'mores and explore sustainable energy... Learning to read labels and understand how to make healthy choices... Exploring cheesemaking to get a better grasp of biological processes... Digging into the anthropology of food practices and holiday food rituals... Even learning about the chemical compounds in onions that make us cry!

There's plenty of fun--and learning--to be found here, so take a look and get excited about the science of food!

Choosing Texts for ELA CCSS

The Common Core State Standards for ELA are in part designed to help students become engaged, critical, interactive readers and interpreters of texts and information. As students grow into more capable readers and learn new strategies for engaging with texts and resource materials, educators can select texts with increasing levels of complexity to challenge their students and motivate them to move forward. Many teachers have questions about how to make these text selections, and how to find texts that are aligned
with the CCSS.

Achievethecore.org has a toolbox of resources for teachers to help them better understand what goes into text selection, and how to choose texts and reading materials that align with the expectations for text complexity set by the CCSS for each grade level.

CHECK OUT THEIR TEXT COMPLEXITY PAGE to find resources for measuring text complexity, finding texts, lesson planning from text complexity, and more.

FREE WestEd Webinar: A Curriculum-First Approach to Technology and the Web

Many educators have concerns about the way that technology can seem like a haphazard element of instruction--something that gets added into the classroom because it seems important and on-trend, but isn't necessarily integrated with the curriculum.

This free webinar from WestEd helps present ideas and strategies for making technology a central, integrated, transformative part of the learning environment, and not merely something added on in an ad hoc manner.

Take a look at the webinar (roughly 1hr and 15 minutes) to get a better sense of how everything from technology infrastructure to stakeholder readiness can impact the way technology is integrated into the curriculum.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH!

Free Video Series--Geometry Instruction for K-8 Teachers!

If you have spare time this summer, take a look at the amazing, in-depth, comprehensive teacher resources from ANNENBERG LEARNER. The mission of the nonprofit organization is "To Advance Excellent Teaching in American Schools." The website is full of fantastic resources for all disciplines, and well worth a closer look.

Included in those resources are a number of in-depth video courses with supporting materials targeted to a variety of grade levels and subject areas. THIS VIDEO SERIES helps frame geometry, not only as a set of skills or objectives for your students to master, but also as a strategic method for problem solving in general. To follow the entire series, you should allow for the better part of a day. Begin with the first session, and then follow along with the prompts to move through the entire series.

Common Core--Spanish Translation!

For educators who work in Spanish-English bilingual classrooms, the notion of translating the Common Core State Standards can mean something much more concrete than finding ways to build rubrics, or develop crosswalks, or create links from one set of resources to another. It can mean finding ways to make actual translations of the standards. And anyone who works across multiple languages knows that translation can very often be a challenging exercise--even moreso when contending with phrases and concepts within the CCSS that demand precision, accuracy, and specificity.

This initiative, a collaboration from the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the California Department of Education (CDE) and the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE), offers a free version of the Math and ELA Common Core State Standards, in Spanish translation.

CHECK OUT THE WEBSITE! There are book recommendations and other resources available as well, so be sure to look around.

Common Core and English Language Learners--A GREAT Blog to Follow!

Ensuring a smooth transition to Common Core State Standards is especially important for English Language Learners (ELL), who have unique learning needs.

Take a look at the COLORIN COLORADO BLOG, which aims to provide commentary, resources, and support for CCSS implementation with English Language Learners.

There are many great hands-on resources on offer here--one of the most popular posts provides a rubric or crosswalk to help educators determine whether Common Core-aligned curriculum being developed for English Language Learners actually meets the needs of those students. Here is the link to the RUBRIC, which is also available HERE AS A PDF file.

Flipped Learning: What is it, does it work, and how can I learn more?

Perhaps you've flipped your classroom and have enjoyed teaching and learning with your students in new ways. Or perhaps you've heard about flipped learning and wondered whether it was just a trend, or whether it really can work to improve student outcomes and create a better environment for learning.

If you're interested in exploring flipped learning and want to know more, check out the FLIPPED LEARNING NETWORK, which provides educators "with the knowledge, skills, and resources to successfully implement Flipped Learning." This is a great website with tons of links, ideas, and resources, whether you're a veteran of flipped learning environments, or simply want to dip your toes in the water.

Take a look at THIS BLOG, run by flipped learning pioneer Jon Bergmann. He is a proponent of the flipped classroom, and spends time exploring the possibilities that flipped learning offers both educators and students. His motto is "Turning Learning on its Head."

Creating a Culture of Learning: Reflections on Assessments

Education has always gone hand in hand with assessments, whether it was Socrates forcing a friend to question a set of underlying premises to test their soundness, or whether it's a math quiz with technology-enhanced items administered and graded digitally on a tablet. It's nearly impossible to think about learning without also thinking about how we measure and understand and track and express what we've learned.

But the ways that educators think about assessments--and put them into practice in the classroom--can vary widely. Here are two thought-provoking articles by Katrina Schwartz from the website Mind/Shift, a blog from NPR and California radio station KQED. Both articles ask probing questions about the purpose of assessments, the current practices, and possible ways of doing things differently.

Take a look at this piece, "More Progressive Ways to Measure Deeper Levels of Learning," which discusses a number of less traditional assessment models.

And be sure to check out this article, too: "The Importance of Low-Stakes Student Feedback," which explores the possibilities that open up when educators make use of frequent formative assessment.

FREE WestEd Webinar: Reading and Writing, Common Core Style!

One of the areas on which the goals of Common Core are focused is building literacy--not only in traditional ways via ELA education, but also across the curriculum. Reading and writing, and the skills that are part of reading and writing, have an enormous role to play as students learn to engage with a variety of texts, topics, ideas, and problems.

This WestEd webinar takes a closer look at Common Core Reading Anchor Standard 1, and attempts to connect it to evidence-based interpretation in other subjects and areas as well. This is a great opportunity to gain a better, clearer understanding of how the CCSS can help students develop literacy and put interpretive skills to work across disciplines.

TAKE A LOOK HERE for the webinar (approximately 34 minutes), and be sure to CLICK ON THE FOLDER to download supporting PDFs and other materials!

Early Childhood Education and Common Core--Resources and Information

One of the major points of focus of the new Common Core State Standards is a seamless connection from early childhood education all the way to higher education and career preparation. But many people have questions about how CCSS can work with very young children. How can early childhood educators align their instruction with Common Core and make sure that they're maintaining developmentally appropriate practices and helping prepare the littlest learners for a transition into elementary school?

Here are a few great blog posts, articles, and resources directed toward early childhood educators. They represent different perspectives and are worth examining for anyone who works with young children, and who wants to learn more about how Common Core will impact the world of early childhood education.

Check out THIS POSITION PAPER from the National Association for the Education of Young Children, which discusses both the benefits and the challenges of the Common Core for early childhood education.

Take a look at THIS COMPREHENSIVE INTRODUCTION to a pre-kindergarten foundation for the Common Core, developed by the New York State Education Department. It includes a vetted sample instructional unit as well!

Watch THIS PRESENTATION by Professor Gillian McNamee as she discusses what it means to have high-quality PreK-3rd grade education in the context of Common Core.

Prof. McNamee's talk was the wrap-up for a conference held by the Erikson Institute of Chicago, focused on pre-k and early childhood education and the impact of Common Core. CHECK OUT THE WEBSITE for a complete list of talks, papers, and resources.

Free Lesson Plans From Smithsonian Education!

Whether you've been to Washington, D.C. or not, no doubt you know about the amazing museums and research centers of the Smithsonian Institution. But did you know that they have a website just for educators, with links to online resources, lesson plans and curriculum guides, and access to some of the museum's exhibits and collections?

Take a look HERE to find their educator homepage, where you can browse to see what they have on offer! And be sure not to miss THIS LIST of lesson plans--they're easy to search by keyword, by standard, by subject and by grade, so finding resources that you can use right away is incredibly user-friendly and easy! The search fields are to the left.

Finally, be sure to check out their Resource Library and their list of Online Events, where you can see how to incorporate museum collections and artifacts into your classroom lessons, and access supporting podcasts and webcasts for free!

Common Core--History and Social Science Resources!

With the Common Core's emphasis on helping students engage more critically and dynamically with texts and ideas, there has never been a better time to bring the lessons and figures from history to life in the classroom. History and the social sciences offer students an incredible arena in which to bring together many of the  important elements the CCSS are designed to foster: problem-solving, understanding and predicting patterns, analyzing and building narratives, and synthesizing information from a variety of sources and texts.

Check out these fantastic resources for American history from the University of Maryland--Baltimore County (UMBC)! In addition to a collection of Common Core-aligned lesson plans (CLICK HERE FOR LESSON PLANS), there is a "history lab" site. What is a history lab? According to UMBC, it's a complete research experience for students and teachers, w
hich allows students to begin thinking like historians, engaging primary and secondary materials, looking at overarching questions, and seeking evidence-based answers.

TAKE A LOOK and see how you can incorporate these history labs into your classroom!

The Changing Landscape of ESL Instruction--FREE WestEd Webinar on June 18th!

How will the transition to Common Core State Standards impact students in English Language Learner / English as a Second Language settings? What will the new standards mean for educators who work with these students? How can educators use this transition to Common Core as an opportunity for making deep and lasting transformations in their pedagogy in order to meet the needs of their students in new and significant ways?

SIGN UP HERE for this free webinar presented by WestEd and the TESOL International Association. You will get the chance to

• Develop awareness of the deep changes required by the implementation of new standards
• Understand the questions that could guide your reflection as you transform your pedagogy
• Understand why prevalent pedagogies do not serve English learners well in the new standards era
• Begin to envision richer, productive pedagogies with English learners

The webinar will be held on Wednesday, June 18 from 10:30-noon EST. You'll need to register at the link above. CHECK OUT THE WESTED SITE to get more info, and if you can't attend at that time, the webinar will be archived!

Th

Common Core Rubric Creator! FREE!

Many times, educators need to use rubrics to evaluate student performances and assess different kinds of activities that may not lend themselves to more traditional forms of assessments.

Rubrics also can help students better understand what the expectations are for an assignment, and give both students and teachers clear criteria when it comes time for grades to be given. In short, rubrics can be fantastic classroom tools--but educators may be wondering how to ensure that the rubrics they create mesh with Common Core.

Check out this FREE tool to help create Common Core-friendly rubrics! It's fully customizable, and you can choose the elements to introduce into your rubric, and revise it anytime you want to update or make changes. You can also share it easily with others, which makes it great for collaborating with team teaching units.

TAKE A LOOK HERE

to see the tool for yourself--no registration needed!

Watch Math Coach Audra McPhillips Teach a Great Common Core Aligned Math Lesson!

Audra McPhillips is a math coach in Rhode Island. In this video for The Teaching Channel, she works with middle school students on understanding how functions operate. McPhillips believes that students in this age group can be engaged in grasping not only lessons and concepts, but also in seeing the way those connect with the standards themselves.

If you create a free account with The Teaching Channel, you'll be able to access all the supporting materials for this lesson--including the lesson plan. Stick around the website to check out a host of other great tutorials and videos.

Common Core and Languages Other Than English--Ideas and Conversations!

In today's global, connected learning environment, learning multiple languages can provide enormous practical and personal benefits for students. In addition to offering horizon-expanding cultural growth and development, languages give students an advantage when it comes to college and career-readiness.

Much of the focus with Common Core has been on ELA and Math, the first areas in which CCSS will be implemented. Yet it's critically important for students and educators alike that the principles that guide and structure Common Core are present and connected throughout the learning environment. Here are a few great places to look for ideas, resources, and conversations about CCSS and Languages Other Than English (LOTE)!

With the emphasis on developing "globally competent citizens" at the heart of Common Core, there are obvious intersections with LOTE. Take a look at the
se blog posts and essays from Education Week to get your wheels turning!

Where World Languages and the Common Core Intersect

Common Core: Preparing Globally Competent Citizens

Check out the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) website for a number of helpful resources, including this crosswalk,

Alignment of the National Standards for Learning Languages with the Common Core State Standards

Finally, take a look at this fascinating World Languages Skills Map, developed by the ACTFL. You'll see the emerging trends in language education, and get great ideas and interdisciplinary strategies for your LOTE classroom! 

Common Core And Social/Emotional Learning

So much of the conversation about Common Core has centered on the academic side of what goes on in the classroom. But as every teacher knows, social and emotional learning makes up an enormous part of what happens in everyday instruction. Whether it's the ability to collaborate with other students, or the ability to be sensitive and empathetic, or developing the social skills needed to be successful in life after school, social and emotional learning are critical components of learning in general.

Common Core is not just about the academic standards and assessments. As this EdSource article argues (CLICK HERE to check it out!), “You’re not going to be able to achieve Common Core standards if kids aren’t working collaboratively and aren’t engaged.”

For a FREE webinar titled "Integrating Social-Emotional Learning Into State and District Policies," check out THIS WEBLINK. You will need Adobe to access the webinar, which is offered by the National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments.

Better Parent-Teacher Conferences--Strategies for Being Effective!

Though this set of resources and strategies is specifically geared toward middle school educators, many of the ideas and issues that this blog post discusses can easily be adapted for all grades.

Here, you can find everything from a checklist for productive conferences, to a tutorial video showing good communication techniques, to suggestions from other teachers who have shared their best practices. Start thinking ahead this summer so that you can be ready for the fall!

CLICK HERE to check out this parent-teacher conference resource roundup on Middleweb.com, a website dedicated to all things middle school!

Common Core Resources for Special Education

Calling all special education teachers and administrators!

This wonderful website from the California Department of Education collects tons of great information about special education and Common Core. From webinars to presentations, resources to FAQs, this site can help you find what you need to know about making the transition to Common Core with your special education students.

CLICK HERE to go to the website, and be sure to take a few minutes to see what's offered!

FREE WestEd Webinar--Personalize Learning to Meet the Common Core

For educators who work with special education students, there are a number of questions about how Common Core State Standards will work in their classrooms. How can you balance the diverse needs of your students and meet the standards? How can you create personalized learning environments within your classroom?

This free 30-minute webinar from experts at WestEd can help you answer these questions and give you a better understanding of how personalized learning can support the Common Core.

CLICK HERE FOR THE WEBINAR and make sure to check out the supporting resources and PDFs as well.

Finding the Right Math Content for your Common Core Aligned Lessons!

The good news is that there are already thousands of great resources to be found online for math teachers who want to create fantastic lessons that are aligned to CCSS. The bad news is that there are thousands of great resources out there! How should you sort, sift, and dig through them all to find the resources and lesson ideas that are exactly right for your students and your classroom?

Check out ck12.org, a website run by the CK-12 Foundation, a non-profit committed to creating and aggregating top-quality STEM content. They have developed a Common Core Math Standards browsing tool that allows teachers to browse the standards and find aligned concepts, and then mine free, vetted resources to build out lesson plans for those concepts.

It may take a bit of practice to get comfortable with the tool, but it's a powerful resource that can help teachers find exactly the content they want to teach!

CLICK HERE TO TAKE A LOOK!

Digital Storytelling--Technology, Creativity, and Common Core

No teacher or parent can deny the power that storytelling has for children. In fact, children's fantasy author Philip Pullman writes, “After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” Stories help us make sense of the world around us, teach us to find meaning and purpose, and convey information in beautiful and sometimes unexpected ways.

What is digital storytelling? At its simplest, it just means using a variety of audio and visual technologies to share personal narratives, to illustrate and present the stories of others, and to expand on creative ideas. It can be a fantastic tool for helping students develop skills and capacities that are integral to the Common Core State Standards.

Students involved in a digital storytelling project can learn how to locate key themes in a narrative, develop deeper and richer vocabulary, and examine and compare different narrative perspectives. They can hone communication and collaboration abilities, as well, and gain confidence in public presentation skills.

Don't let the technology part of digital storytelling intimidate you! Check out this list of great websites for ideas on how to get started with digital storytelling in your classroom!

Edtechteacher.org -- Take a look at their digital storytelling page for tools, examples, and media resources!


Yesalliance.org -- This group (Youth, Educators, and Storytellers Alliance) has a set of fantastic short briefs that show you how digital storytelling explicitly aligns with CCSS for grades K-6 and 7-12.

Shrockguide.net -- This page from ed tech specialist Kathy Shrock's blog offers an enormous set of links and resources, all related to digital storytelling. It can take a little effort  to find the things that will be most helpful, but it's worth it!