There is no question that the United States is lagging behind the rest of the world in education standards. Recent changes sweeping the country may be the solution: the Common Core State Standards.
The Common Core State Standards map out what every student is expected to learn, as an aid for both teachers and parents as they assist their children in education. It is sponsored by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.
These new standards bring out opposing views. Some see them as a defined set of objectives that will help students with critical thinking skills. Others view it as downplaying vital subjects, such as literature and art.
“I have every reason to believe it will be a positive impact if we are putting out high quality teachers who teach their learners, not the tests,” Associate Professor of Education Allison Cassady said.
The Common Core standards currently focus on two main subjects: math and English. The math portion emphasizes the “Why?” part of problem solving, and how to solve the problem multiple ways. The English standard focuses on informational texts, such as biographies and scholarly articles. Some people are worried that by emphasizing math and English, other subjects might be ignored. However, the Common Core wants to incorporate all subjects together to make them flow.
“Common Core is really big on integrating,” senior elementary education major Cody Summerville said. “It’s how can we incorporate history, science, math and language arts all at the same time. It really deepens learning and makes learning more meaningful and useful to a student.”
Since the Common Core Standards are currently the same for 48 of the 50 states, children who move will be ensured the same level of learning from state to state.
“By having that continuum of learning, you make sure no kid falls behind because they haven’t learned it, and you make sure no kid gets bored or unmotivated,” Summerville said.
Some schools spend up to 100 days during the school year testing or doing test-prep work, which deprives the kids of the learning and instruction they need to succeed in the real world. The Common Core intends to change that in order to enable students to think logically and critically about a problem.
“The basic thing that is coming with the Core Curriculum is that, instead of having students that can recite back, let’s have students who can think,” Associate Professor of Education Caren Feuerhelm said.
This month provided an example of what can happen when schools focus too much on testing. 35 Atlanta teachers were caught in a cheating scandal based on test scores. The teachers had inflated scores on standardized tests in order to receive bonuses and performance awards.
These standards will potentially give schools something to focus on rather than taking tests and will eliminate opportunity for teachers to cheat on test scores.
Oklahoma Christian University has a large number of education majors who will work with these new standards when they start their teaching career. Fortunately, Oklahoma Christian is already implementing in their education program how to teach using these standards.
“What we are teaching our students is how to use the common core,” Cassady said. “How to implement all areas of content, whether they be language, reading, science, social studies, math, you name it. Art, music, all of those – we are trying to teach our students how to take a well-rounded approach to teaching, as opposed to a cookie-cutter approach.”
Oklahoma Christian may need to make changes to its General Education requirements in the future for the incoming students who have grown up using the Common Core.
“There are trends in education, whether it’s Common Core, how we manage a classroom or how we design a school building,” Cassady said. “You’re going to see those trends reflected in higher education over time. So yeah, I think eventually the Common Core will impact OC, based on what our future students are learning in their public schools.”
Future Oklahoma Christian students may, in fact, be more prepared to participate in college level academics after learning under the new standards.
“Students will come in hopefully more prepared for college, because they have asked the ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions more and not just the ‘what,’” Summerville said. “The ability to reason and problem-solve will be deeper, which will make your college classes more fun for your professors to teach, because they are able to go more into critical thinking and evaluating different things.”
Oklahoma’s Common Core Curriculum falls under the umbrella of state standards entitled Oklahoma C3 standards, which stands for college, career and citizen.
“The Common Core is not just Pre-K through 12 – it’s all across,” said Feurehelm. “It’s called C3, because one of those stands for career. College is where we want to start working with careers.”
With the establishment of the Common Core, students have the potential for growth in critical thinking, while teachers have guidelines to make sure everything is covered, hopefully ensuring success for everyone.
“There’s always good and bad,” Feuerhelm. “But what I hear from teachers in the field is that, once we get accustomed to this, it has the potential to be a really good set of standards.”
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