Monday, March 17, 2014

Can we make the uncommon common?


I attended "Uncommon Approaches to the Common Core" at the Roberson Museum and Science Center last Friday.  There were two components to the day - a keynote address by Kate Gerson, and an array of break-out sessions demonstrating how cultural and scientific institutions can support facets of Common Core instruction.

Regrettably, the keynote had nothing to do with the intended purpose of the day - finding ways to build learning opportunities through the authentic experiences available at regional institutions. Instead, the focus of her remarks were 1) using the remainder of the academic year to focus on the learning of priority skills rather than on racing to “complete” the curriculum, and 2) advocating the value of “domain organization” in reading instruction as a path for increased vocabulary and comprehension growth.

The professional development portion of the day followed. While the midday panel discussion and the closing table discussion centered on how to convince administrators of the time-well-spent instructional value of funding field trips, the break-out sessions provided concrete demonstrations of how regional resources can support classroom instruction. (Subsequently, I read this NYTimes article about the growth of private funding in the sciences, its advantages and pitfalls, and wonder if it does not provide the likeliest avenue for even our modest regional educational needs.)

The session on Integrating Visual, Historical, and Cultural Resouces into the Common Core used an archival photograph as an accessible means of working into a Close Reading of a 1913 Binghamton Press article. It was an inspired means of maintaining discovery for students while modifying the threshold of reading engagement. For me, it reinforces the role I am uniquely positioned to play in providing these visual and textual documents for busy teachers.

I was also stuck by several comments about the instructional value of using the “academic language” of various disciplines as a pivotal tool for students understanding texts and writing within the discipline. I think there are several ways within some of my current library practices to reinforce that idea.

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