Mark Strassman, senior vice president of product management for Blackboard, shares four tips to help schools prepare for the Common Core
Ready or not, Common Core is coming. The national educational standards for K-12 schools will officially debut in the 2014-15 school year, and it is bringing a new way of teaching and learning with it. These new standards will change how teachers teach, what teachers are teaching, and how students are evaluated.
Some school districts across the country still have work to do before these changes take place. But the good news is that the right technology tools will ease the transition for all stakeholders.
Here are four tips for how your school district can use technology to prepare for the Common Core:
1. Train up with online collaboration tools
Districts are focused on getting teachers trained not only on the deeper subject matters, but also on feeling comfortable using online tools in the classroom. And, as studies show, the most effective way to get anyone familiar in an online learning environment is for them to take online classes themselves. By conducting professional development via digital tools teachers learn, and learn to embrace, the same technologies that their students will use for their Common Core “digital competency” evaluations.