Many have already heard of the new change in education requirements called Common Core, but what does it really mean to high school students?
The previous high school standards are long out of date and need to be updated so that students retain what they learn. The old standards, the California Education Code (EC) 51225.3, required: three English courses, two math, two in science (one each of biological and physical), three courses in social studies, two physical education courses, and one course in a foreign language or visual/performing arts in order to graduate with a high school diploma.
The new Common Core standards for high school should be fully in place by 2015 and are going to have a big impact on math and English with sciences planned to come. The new standards were created based on the education requirements and expectations of various countries around the world that have high performance rates.
Math courses will be renamed Math 1, 2, and 3 to match up with the course naming system of other countries and focus more on students finding multiple ways to get an answer more so that focusing on the answer itself. These standards should help students see from multiple viewpoints and think deeply to solve a problem. Statistics will also become required since they are more useful for real world application.
The English portion of the new Common Core standards hope to use more nonfiction and incorporate them into other subjects such as reading historical documents in social studies classes.
“If the only place students are reading and writing is in English,” says Tim Dewar, a former high school teacher who is currently a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, “then we are screwed.”
By integrating reading and writing in other subjects, Common Core hopes to have students use more critical thinking across various subjects and stretch their minds.
Students that excel at the current system may not like the change because it will require them to try different methods for problem solving instead of doing one problem after another in the same way.
“We are graduating kids who aren’t good problem solvers.” Says Natalie Ireland, who used to be a teacher at Franklin Elementary.
The critical thinking aspect of Common Core will be more useful in the real world application than just solving a problem from the given directions because not all real world problems come with step-by-step instructions.
Students, parents, and teachers should be preparing for the various changes that will come when Common Core has been completely implemented.
Source:
http://left2write.org/reviews/2013/12/13/common-core-comes-to-core/