The Curriculum Support and Reform Act of 2011 (AB 250) requires the California Department of Education to oversee the development of professional learning modules (PLMs) that support educators in delivering curriculum aligned to the CCSS to all pupils. These modules will be available online at no cost.
The legislation required that a task force develop criteria to guide the development of the PLMs to provide critical information and strategies as the CCSS are implemented. These criteria would be based on the CA Standards for the Teaching Professions and developed in consideration of the National Staff Development Council’s Standards for Staff Development. The PLMs are to make use of and build on existing professional development programs.
CCSS Professional Learning Modules Task Force Members
The PLMs are charged with deepening educators' understanding of at least the following criteria:
- The CCSS.
- Instructional strategies to support the learning of all pupils, including English learners, pupils with disabilities, and underperforming pupils.
- Instructional strategies that promote creativity, innovation, critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and communication skills in all academic content areas.
- The integration of subject content knowledge.
- Instructional leadership and coaching.
Task force members were also charged with selecting the PLM topics.
Welcome to the California Common Core State Standards Professional Learning Modules
The following module topics are now available:
Overview of the Common Core State Standards for California Educators
This module provides an overview of key features of the Common Core State Standards and guides educators to discover the shifts and changes from the 1997 standards for English language arts and Mathematics and how these changes affect their learning contexts. The module includes links to high quality resources to guide implementation of the Common Core State Standards.
Mathematics: Kindergarten through Grade Eight Learning Progressions
This module provides an overview of how the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics kindergarten through grade eight learning progressions are sequenced across and within grade-level spans (kindergarten through grade five and grades six through eight) and how to apply the progressions to instructional practice.
Mathematics: Kindergarten through Grade Twelve Standards for Mathematical Practice
This module explores the teaching and learning of mathematics through the lens of the Standards for Mathematical Practice for students in kindergarten through grade twelve. It will deepen educators’ understanding of what the mathematical practices are, and why they are important to bring to their students as they transition to the Common Core State Standards.
English Language Arts: Informational Text—Reading
This module provides participants with an understanding of the rationale for increased emphasis on reading informational text, as defined in California’s Common Core State Standards, in order to better prepare students in kindergarten through grade twelve for college and career success. The module explores the current challenges to providing students with rigorous informational text, and provides practical ideas and innovative solutions. The dilemma of matching text to readers to ensure students move up the ladder of text complexity is explored, and engaging strategies to support students’ access to rigorous texts are provided and explained. Included in this module are five units consisting of pre- and post-assessments, research-based strategies, and resources for classroom application.
English Language Arts: Writing to Inform, Argue, and Analyze
This module embeds lessons that reflect key shifts in teaching writing as emphasized by the Common Core State Standards. The lessons are organized by grade level spans (kindergarten through grade two, grades three through five, grades six through eight, and grades nine through twelve) for teaching informative and argument writing genres that convey and critique information, present and analyze arguments, and use evidence and research to communicate for academic and real-world purposes. Suggestions are included for assessing student writing and for scaffolding lessons so all students, especially English learners and students with disabilities, learn and employ the rhetorical and language features of the genres.
Content Literacy for Technical Subjects
(New 9-Jul-2013)
This module provides kindergarten through grade twelve educators with an overview of literacy strategies that directly support technical subjects through interactive engagement with academic discourse, as specified by the Common Core State Standards. The module contains units that promote understanding of the integration of reading and writing in technical subjects such as engineering, technology, design, and business, or technical aspects of wider fields of study, such as art and music, within the context of the College and Career Readiness Standards.
Additional modules regarding the following topics are currently in development. Please subscribe to the CCSS Resources Listserv to be notified when additional modules become available.
Assessment Literacy
This module provides an overview of the components of a balanced assessment system as applied to the Common Core State Standards. Assessment as an integrated part of the instructional cycle and the roles of both formative and summative assessments in that cycle are addressed. This module emphasizes the identification and effective use of a variety of classroom formative assessment strategies/techniques and the appropriate use of the resulting data to inform instructional decisions to improve student learning.
Content Literacy for Science
This module addresses building student understanding of inquiry-based science by incorporating and enhancing the literacy skills of oral language (speaking and listening), writing (particularly in science notebooks), and reading of informational text. The module features: an overview of literacy in science; four model lessons at grade spans kindergarten through grade two, grades three through five, grades six through eight, and grades nine through twelve; analysis of student work at the same grade levels; planning templates for teachers to design lessons that align the Common Core State Standards to their science learning goals; and resources for differentiated instruction and other ideas for building scientific literacy.
Content Literacy in History/Social Studies, Kindergarten through Grade Five
This module provides elementary teachers, kindergarten through grade five, with information, strategies, exemplars, video vignettes, and resources to strengthen students’ informational literacy through reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities in the context of social studies. By increasing attention on literacy within the History/Social Studies curriculum, educators take an important step towards providing all students with the knowledge, skills and dispositions for success in college, career, and civic life as engaged citizens in the 21st century.
Content Literacy in History/Social Studies, Grade Six through Grade Twelve
This module provides secondary educators with information to better understand the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for Literacy in History/Social Studies. Using an inquiry-based approach while implementing the CCSS in the history/social studies classrooms will deepen student understanding of historical content, improve critical thinking, and develop academic literacy. The module will feature teacher discussions and reflection, classroom video, and student work samples to model methods for using the CCSS to promote students’ close reading of historical documents, student discussions, and argumentative writing.
English Learners, English Language Development Standards, and the CCSS
This module will provide an introduction to understanding and using 2012 California English Language Development Standards (CA ELD standards) to ensure English learner (EL) students have access to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and the Technical Subjects. The content of the module will focus on using the CA ELD Standards in tandem with the Common Core State Standards during mainstream content instruction, and using the CA ELD Standards as the focal standards for designated ELD instruction. The module will be presented in two parts, the first providing an overview and introduction to their implementation; the second exploring in further depth how the CA ELD standards can be implemented both for designated ELD, and in tandem with Common Core State Standards for content area instruction.
