According to David T. Conley, “Test prep instruction fosters shallow learning”, pure and simple.  Conley, in his article, Building on the Common Core, the Common Core standards could “transform education” effectively moving us away from shallow learning, “if educators translate them into new curriculum and instruction to get students college and career ready.”

First, let’s get some background on the Common Core (CC).  Here we go:

• The CC standards were released in June 2010 and developed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.  The states had a huge hand in their creation.  This isn’t a Fed thing.
• The CC standards are for English language arts and mathematics but in high school, the ELA standards for reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language are also translated to literacy standards in history and social studies, science and technical subjects.  This is huge because now all teachers, at least at the HS level, are responsible for teaching fundamental literacy skills.  Why they didn’t this for middle schools as well is beyond me.
• The CC are standards, not curriculum.
• By creating a foundation of standards, such as the CC, we can specify key knowledge and skills, make better use of student data, assemble quality curriculum materials, deliver teacher preparation aligned with key content standards; and conduct research where we can better identify what works.
• The standards identify cognitive processes.  If we develop curriculum that aligns to Conley’s five cognitive processes, students will be presented with an engaging, challenging curriculum that supports content acquisition.  This will require that teachers adopt instructional strategies that provide students opportunities to engage in complex, challenging and non-routine applications of knowledge.

According to Conley and his fellow researchers, we need to “translate standards into cognitively complex tasks and assignments aligned with college and career readiness”.  He relates that above and beyond general content knowledge in key disciplines such as English and mathematics, there are five key cognitive strategies that students need to master to be college and career ready across any content area.

They are:

• Problem formulation – the ability to formulate a problem before leaping to a solution.  The student has to generate plausible hypothesis and strategies to solve the problem.  By doing this, students become aware of the strategies necessary to solve problems.  Ah, so that’s why I need to know X?  I can use it to solve Y!
• Research – once students have explored possible solutions, they need to conduct research, e.g., find information necessary to solve the problem.  Students need to learn to utilize a wide range of information.
• Interpretation – similar to the above process, students also need to learn to organize information.  This is where a teacher pulls out graphic organizers such as two column notes for pro and con lists, tables, grids, outlines of key points, lists of consistencies and contradictions in the data.  What’s the researcher’s agenda?  Did that influence the way the researcher interpreted data?  A students ability to evaluate information and apply rules of relevance is key.
• Communication – ultimately students must be able to present their findings and new ideas to varying audiences.  They must have practice “organizing the output of their research and interpretation and then construct an argument or presentation that derives directly from carefully collected, analyzed and organized information”.  It’s a process with multiple steps that requires modeling and practice.
• Precision and accuracy – students need to “exercise precision and accuracy consistent with the rules of the discipline”.  Again, this has to be taught, moving from novice to expert along a continuum.

Which brings us to the development of common assessments.  Conley explains that when we create assessments we should think of our students placing somewhere along a novice to expert continuum.  “As learners develop their knowledge schema and gain more experience drawing knowledge from their schema, their performance progresses.”  We need to create complex, non-routine ways for students to show us where they are on a continuum and then push them each year to higher levels of cognitive functioning. Makes sense.  If we aren’t already doing that, what are we doing?  No wonder students cram for tests and then forget everything if they don’t perceive that there’s a need to remember.

According to Conley, students need to experience numerous opportunities to use content knowledge to solve interesting problems, grapple with key questions and issues of the discipline and examine social issues.  This creates the schema or mind maps that stick.  To promote further retention, students need to engage in Socratic questioning and creation of problems (problem formulation), investigate (research, precision and accuracy), debate and give presentations and participate in projects (communicate), engaging all five key cognitive strategies every day.

But these cognitive skills must be taught and at their core, teachers must work together to lay down a foundation of academic learning skills so that students can engage in the cognitive strategies.  For instance, teachers should require that students set explicit goals and meet specific benchmarks along a continuum towards completion of a project.  I grimace when my 17 year old had three months to write a research paper but starts it four days before its due because the teacher didn’t require any check-in along the way.  Thus, I get it when Conley says teachers should model study skills and expect students to employ good study skills in both individual and group settings.  That means modeling how to read and re-read for deeper understanding, teach students how to annotate text and take notes, engage students in inquiry based learning through interactive lecturing techniques, require students to conduct daily quick writes, and then allow students to talk it all out through simple think-pair-shares.  Teachers should model what it’s like to think and self reflect on the quality of ones work.  Teachers should encourage and reward persistence with difficult tasks and instill a belief that effort trumps aptitude.

Okay okay!  My God, it’s a wonder anyone takes up this work.  But, if teachers team up and follow the CC as it was intended, the burden of the above responsibilities can be shared.

After reading Schmoker’s book, FOCUS (see my first post), I was rather down on the CC.  Mike wrote that there are too many untested standards.  Especially when our high performing counter parts in Singapore, Finland and the like are teaching 15 standards a year.  He did write about Conley’s key cognitive strategies as a very smart way to narrow down the number of ELA standards.  But Mike also poo poos project based learning, at least until a teacher masters basic instructional strategies.  I get that, but when I read Conley’s key cognitive strategies, I see project based learning in its purest and most beautiful form.

In any event, I think we need the CC and common assessments because the standards “lay out a road map of major ideas, concepts, knowledge and skills” and if they create corresponding common assessments that are formative in nature too, what a win for educators who don’t feel qualified to create assessments.  Common assessments designed  to help us know where each of our students is along the novice-expert continuum is a major plus.  And, even better, as students move about their districts or even out of state, they may not feel so lost.  I also like the idea of teachers using the same assessments so that students experience a level playing field from one teacher to the next but also teachers may feel compelled to ask a peer how they got the results they did and would they share how they went about it.

Thanks for the article, David!  C