California Group Offers Help With Common Core Transition

A group of California educators is working with university experts to help familiarize Golden State teachers with the new Common Core Standards.

Along with education experts from Stanford University, members of the California Teachers Association will provide professional development training and resources to more than 50,000 teachers and administrators in the state over three years as part of the Instructional Leadership Corps (ILC) project.

“Educators have a professional responsibility to drive this collaborative agenda because, at the end of the day, we’re about improving teacher quality and building better learning environments for our kids,” CTA President Dean E. Vogel said in a statement  (opens in a new tab).

Common Core is controversial, with a number of groups divided on its effectiveness and whether the standards constitute government overreach into classrooms. Despite the debate, California schools are starting to transition to using the standards in their curricula.

The ILC project relies on a system in which a cohort of roughly 200 teachers and site-based leaders will participate in trainings to help develop more effective learning methods for students. Those participants will then take the new instructional practices back to their schools to help support and teach their peers, eventually reaching 50,000 instructors throughout the state.

During a two-day training in October, participants took part in workshops and discussions that covered topics including knowledge of students and their needs, content knowledge, instructional strategies, and ways to connect instruction to expectations for student learning.

“It’s the first time where we as teachers are forming groups to help other teachers with curriculum and instruction,” Jeff Orlinsky, a high school science teacher and CTA member, said in a statement about the project. “What makes this ILC approach unique is that there are a lot of really outstanding teachers who never know how to get their ideas to the rest of their peers. This project is helping other teachers share their ideas.”

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