Nancy Fichtman Dana - Inquiring Into the Common Core

Praise for Inquiring Into the Common Core

This book is clearly a must read for any educator responsible for implementing the Common Core State Standards. Through authentic classroom examples, the authors present a compelling argument for using inquiry as both a powerful professional learning design for developing teachers expertise in the implementation of the Common Core, and as an effective instructional approach to actively engage students in their learning of the standards.

Amy B. Colton, Executive Director
Learning Forward Michigan

In Inquiring Into the Common Core, Nancy Dana has provided practitioners with another go to book for ideas and guidance. Teachers, principals, and central office administrators will discover a very helpful book full of useful examples and references for implementing the Common Core State Standards. Once again, Nancy and her colleagues guide educators through the inquiry process with a focus on increased student learning. Inquiring Into the Common Core presents a well-conceived process for using teacher and student inquiry to implement the Common Core State Standards.

Cynthia Simonsen, Director of Learning and Instruction
Anacortes School District, WA

In the book Inquiring Into the Common Core, practitioners will find a roadmap, travel guide, and even snap shots of inquiry work with the Common Core standards. As we travel a new path in education with the Common Core standards, the pioneers of this book and the teachers at Woodson Elementary provide practical tips and motivate us for the journey. Readers will learn how to use Common Core standards as the map and inquiry as the vehicle for the learning ride of a lifetime! THIS is how we should approach bringing the Common Core standards to life in our classrooms.

Kathy Florida Elementary Reading Coach of the Year
Immokalee, FL

A well-organized, easy-to-read format makes Inquiring Into the Common Core a great resource to guide teacher inquiry, discussions in professional learning communities, or a schoolwide book study. Centered around the stories and reflective voices of teachers, this book provides authentic and practical tools and resources for educators to effectively engage in the complex and rewarding work of understanding and applying these new standards for student learning.

Mary Conage, Title I Director
Pinellas County Schools, FL

We must answer the call of the Common Core to empower our teachers as professionals and inquirers. Dana, Burns, and Wolkenhauer provide a framework for how to go about this work in a clear and urgent manner. The Common Core is clear about what to teach. How to teach is up to us. To reach the promise of the Common Core, we must position ourselves as studiers of our own practice. As good as we are, we can always get better; this is the inherent message of Inquiring Into the Common Core. Inquiry is not a scary thing!

Katherine Reed, Teacher Development Specialist
Hamilton Southeastern Schools, IN

Inquiring Into the Common Core is an excellent resource for educators who want to make the conversion to Common Core successfully. For anyone questioning the purpose of this broad movement in education, the authors provide us with the What, How, and Why. Most importantly, this book helps to eliminate any fear associated with the transition to Common Core. This is a teacher friendly book; the authors truly understand and convey the complexities of the modern classroom and the relationship between teaching and learning. The way the authors have successfully and effectively linked learning theory to instructional practice is truly refreshing.

Neyland G. Clark, Superintendent
South Harrison Community School Corporation, IN

Using inquiry as a means of addressing the Common Core standards is a wonderful way to transform the learning experiences for everyone. With teachers and students as learners, leaders and inquirers, the inquiry process provides a great framework for diving into the Common Core standards. This book highlights possibilities for teaching and learning with the ingenuity of teachers and the resilience of students as they venture into the raised standards of the Common Core.

Donnan Stoicovy, Principal and Lead Learner
Park Forest Elementary School, State College, PA

For the teachers, administrators, and children of
Carter G. Woodson Elementary School

Copyright 2013 by Corwin

All rights reserved. When forms and sample documents are included, their use is authorized only by educators, local school sites, and/or noncommercial or nonprofit entities that have purchased the book. Except for that usage, no part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America.

A catalog record of this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 9781452274263

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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List of Figures

Foreword

Inquiring Into the Common Core is not a how to do it book but rather an engaging and beautifully written narrative of Woodson Elementary School and how the leadershipand the teachers changed the school culturefor themselves and their students. Led by a visionary principal and vice principal, the school situated in Duval County, Florida, which has a preponderance of high-need and high- poverty students, took on two huge ideasthe Common Core and inquiry.

The school had not been successful for five years in trying to reach students using pacing guides and test preparation as their guide. Enter the Common Core Standards and teacher and student inquiry. Instead of telling the teachers what they had to do, the school, through its leadership, took up the idea of inquiry as a stance in teaching. Teachers began to engage students in asking questions, involving them in seeking answers, discussing, writing, talking together, and more. With guidance and persistence, teachers came to see that student inquiry, when done with care and support, also turns out to cover many of the standards in the Common Core but in a different way than what they had been doing.

Through the eyes and experiences of two teachers, we begin to see how teachers can remove the restrictions of test prep and substitute inquiry as a means of studying their own practice and, at the same time, teaching students to inquire, investigate, engage, research, write, and generally develop skills in critical thinking, problem solving, and collaborating with their peers.