Week 3 Reflectoin

The focus on the presentation, collaboration and comprehension within the ELA CCSS, reinforces the shift toward the value and importance of higher order thinking skills. if the goal of the CCSS is to prepare students to be ready for college or a career the nesserary skills of approperiate grammatical use, presentation skills and collaboration are fundamental. The simple act of applying for and interviewing for a job utelizes all of these areas. The pratice and experience that students gain by developing anf fine tuning these skills within the academic setting will allow our students to become more confident and successful in their ability to secure and maintain gainful employment. For me, I have found that the use of high level language even within the youngest grades is critial to developing a rich vocabulary. By giving some direct examples of how to use technology into the classroom is very useful. It is always most fusterating to have a series of new directives handed, and even resources purchased, but teachers not have the "know how" or understanding of how to embed techology into a lesson plan. During college a professor of mine told me that the best indicator of a student's success on a standardized test was what type of car the parent drives. I also remember from high school that students had heard the rumor that you wanted your SAT scores to "match" your grades. If your grades where much lower then your SAT scores, colleges would think you were lazy. If you grades where much higher then your SAT score you were a hard worker. I think we all wonder, and I know I do, what do assessments like NECAPS, iReady, NWEAS, measure? What is the correlation to scores on these tests and students grades? What type of ability do these tests actually have in predicting future success in college or a career? A recent article in The New York Times highlights this question, how valuable are the assessments? http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/nyregion/didnt-ace-sat-just-design-microbe-transplant-research.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0