More than 60 teachers and educational administrators from across Long Island attended the March 3 Module Fair at Freeport High School to discuss and share units of study regarding the new Common Core Learning Standards developed by the state.
The Common Core Standards emphasize the increased use of reading, writing and media, and suggest that education professionals utilize pre-AP style questions that require higher level thinking skills and a deeper understanding of a unit of study, rather than the "short answer" test assessments used in the past.
According to the Common Core State Standards, students who meet the standards readily undertake the close, attentive reading that is at the heart of understanding and enjoying complex works of literature. "They habitually perform the critical reading necessary to pick carefully through the staggering amount of information available today in print and digitally," the Core Standards guide explains. "They actively seek the wide, deep and thoughtful engagement with high-quality literary and informational texts that builds knowledge, enlarges experience, and broadens worldviews."
"I personally am very excited about the Common Core," said Dr. Wafa Westervelt, Freeport's Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum. "I feel and believe that we're going to go back to teaching the way it was more than 15 years ago, and that is having a more comprehensive viewpoint of what it is that we need to teach children and how we go about teaching it."
