Blogs on Assessment

Amid all the hubbub about this week's new Race to the Top winners -- who got it but didn't deserve it, who didn't get it but should have, why almost all the victorious states are east of the Mississippi -- the big thing I'm wondering is: how will all this change the experience of kids in the classroom?

Just as school started to wrap up in June, I decided that at the beginning of next year we would be picking a local cause and trying to solve it. I was entertaining the thought that the kids would pick their own cause, but I'm thinking of building up to that later on. I think instead we'll start with a common cause -- one that we might actually make an impact on.

The National Science Education Standards were published in 1996. The NSES and it's emphasis on "science as inquiry," quickly became a cornerstone of reform efforts and set the tone for a national dialogue about what science teaching should look like. We have learned a lot about effective teaching, curriculum planning, and how students learn science since the original publication of NSES. It is time for the "next generation" of national science standards...and they are on the way.

Editor's Note: Our guest blogger today is Andrew Marcinek, an English Instructor at Boys Latin Charter School of Philadelphia. His post is inspired by this week's #edchat topic, "What's the ideal classroom design for 21st-century learning?"