Cornerstone Tasks

I've been working hard at Understanding the CCSS and it's implications for Curriculum development in my role as facilitator (coordinator).  People ask me questions everyday about how it will impact our curriculum.  

I've been saying in a nutshell it will cause us to rewrite and rethink.

Read my post on CCSS here then check this out:

Cornerstone tasks are opportunities for student to USE knowledge and skill they have learned throughout a unit or duration of study in order to INDEPENDENTLY demonstrate their learning.

These tasks are REALISTIC in nature.  Have an authentic audience (See Ron Berger, An Ethic of Excellence)

Cornerstone Tasks involve MANY:

• CCSS
• Content standards
• 21st century skills (creativity, technology use, teamwork, etc.)

These cornerstone tasks "honor the intent of the standard within and across subject areas."

This SCREAMS Project, Problem, Passion and Game-based learning. 

See my post here on Curriculum Models throughout time....

Cornerstone tasks are designed to reoccur from grade-level to grade-level progressing from simpler to more sophisticated.  From more scaffolded to more autonomous in nature.

As we continue down the road of learning about the CCSS and begin looking at other standards, outcomes and expectations from areas such as NCSS, NCHE, NGSS, and others we MUST be so moved to revision items that impact our alignment:

1.  Our grading practices from points to standards based
2.  Our summative assessments from paper/pencil to something more authentic
3.  Out schedule from math only happens from 8:47 - 9:33 to when it's needed for the project
4.  Our role as educators from holder of knowledge to advocator of learning
5.  Our training of new teachers
6.  Our model of checklists and scope and sequences to Cornerstone Tasks

We will not be able to meet the myriad of tasks and performance outcomes simply by making a list and checking it off.  We MUST throw the goals and outcomes off the table, start fresh with these cornerstone tasks (project, problems, games, and passions) and pull in standards when and where they fit.


The CCSS will eventually cause us to change our thinking from:

Scope and sequence/step by step/1st hour, 2nd hour, 3rd hour

to this:

Theme/Project/Student-Centered/Passion-Driven/Cornerstone Task centered

Support and resources:

• See how Cornerstone Tasks are viewed through the Arts: http://schooltheatre.org/publications/teaching-theatre/2012/summer/cornerstone-tasks
• Interesting Presentation on Assessment and Cornerstone tasks: http://educationaljargonschs.wikispaces.com/file/view/Authentic+and+Cornerstone+assessment.pdf
• More on Assessment: http://educationaljargonschs.wikispaces.com/Assessment
• Wiggins on Assessment: http://www.authenticeducation.org/ae_bigideas/article.lasso?artId=114

Images from:

Cornerstone - http://www.stonehouseconsulting.com/Benchmarking/Cornerstone_files/cornerstone-altered.jpg

Dominos - http://datejesus.com/falling_dominoes.jpg

5 BIG ideas from CCSS

This post is a summary/adaptation from Wiggins/McTighe article on 5 big ideas.

1.  Read carefully

AH-HA Moment: DON'T turn directly to YOUR grade level.  You'll miss the point.  READ THE WHOLE THING!

• Long term outcomes are in mind so the components are intended to work together.
• Educators need to understand the internt and structure of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS)
• Read the "front matter"
• What is the instructional emphasis?
• If you don't read the CCSS and don't understand the CCSS, you'll think it's the same old stuff, IT'S NOT 

2.  Standards does not equal curriculum

• "A Standard is an outcome, NOT a claim about how to achieve the outcome."
• "Standards are like building codes.  Architects and builders must attend to them but they are NOT the purpose of the design."
• "Development of important capabilities in the learner as a result of engaging and effective work."
• Keep long term educational goals in mind
• Standards are ingredients to a recipe more than they are the final meal
• Standards are rules to the game rather than the strategy

ASIDE:  We are looking at "curriculum" wrong.  

We are looking at it as what is to be "covered,"

 as opposed to what is to be LEARNED.

3.  Unpacking required

• Read the document!
• Unpack the standards into categories:
• Long-Term Transfer Goals - "effective uses of content, knowledge and skill both inside and outside of the classroom"
• Overarching Understandings - Key needs for students
• Overarching Essential Questions - Key skills or behaviors of how students interact with new problems
• Cornerstone Tasks - curriculum embedded tasks that are intended to ENGAGE students in applying knowledge and skills ON THEIR OWN.

AH-HA MOMENT: This understanding of "cornerstone tasks" inspired me to write the next blog post pending.

• This "unpacking" is intended at a district or "macro" level as they call it.  Using the whole span of learning for students or within a specific program (in my case science or social studies).
• Unpacking DOES NOT mean make a checklist

4.  Backwards design is essential

• Curriculum in Latin means: Course to be run...
• Ralph Tyler purpose for standards: "to indicate the kinds of changes in the student to be brought about....thus... standards provide content headings"
• Don't think about what we teach and when we teach it but through the lens of "having learned the key content, what will students be able to do with it."
• Curriculum is designed to develop INDEPENDANT transfer in students
• To "assume the layout of the CCSS implies a chronology is flawed thinking"

AH-HA MOMENT: Thinking of standards as discrete skills or concepts leads to "coverage mentality" and reveals a misconception that teaching bits in a logical and specified order will somehow add up to the desired achievements called for in the standards."

• "a curriculum envisioned and enacted as a set of maps of content and skill coverage will simply not by itself develop a students's increasingly autonomous capacity to USE learned content effectively to address complex tasks and problems."
• Math CCSS say: "just because topic A comes before topic B doesn't mean" it has to when you teach

AH-HA MOMENT: "You can only say you have fully understood and applied your learning when you can do it without someone telling you what to do."

5.  Assessments are key

• Standards don't specify learning goals
• Standards qualities of student work
• Standards tell us the degrees of rigor that is assessed
• The appendices are the most important part of the CCSS
• Cultivating and curating examples of student work will help illustrate qualities of performance
• Design Backwards:
• Develop Cornerstone tasks influenced by Content and CCS Standards
• Use Standards-based assessments
• Develop rigorous rubrics
• Use annotated work samples

In Summary: This is not your same old grade level expectations, there are new ways of looking at and thinking about student learning.

Images from:

5 - http://www.wisdomportal.com/Christmas/Demuth-Figure5InGold.jpg

Cornerstone - http://www.stonehouseconsulting.com/Benchmarking/Cornerstone_files/cornerstone-altered.jpg

miss - http://i1.cpcache.com/product/83027340/miss_independant_t.jpg?height=380&width=380

Optical Illusion - https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiutHEx5mmNFlaTpljbG0f0h-ZFp8z_7ooVERp16eZEP_P2vg_cMAkMY1U-dJze0NR6A1EdVcmX239Jg_VmVfMusIIdM4vB_mOLPzuSxKXXkVS3LKFPkzeO4xFF95Uefc0lf6sh8R379DhJ/s400/alphabet-optical-illusion.gif