“Effective implementation of the Common Core State Standards may be the greatest challenge that the U.S. has faced in K-12 education."--Alvin Crawford, KDS CEO
New York (PRWEB) May 29, 2014
Building on its extensive library of 80 online PD courses, Knowledge Delivery Systems (KDS) is poised to address the nation-wide need to deepen educator understanding of the Common Core State Standards by adding 25 new Common Core courses to its catalog.
“Effective implementation of the Common Core State Standards may be the greatest challenge that the U.S. has faced in K-12 education. Millions of teachers need to make a profound shift in teaching practice to make CCSS reform successful and to improve student outcomes. The old models of PD didn’t work for addressing the old standards; we shouldn’t expect them to work for the Common Core,” states Alvin Crawford, CEO of Knowledge Delivery Systems. “For the U.S. to deliver on the promise of the Common Core to prepare students for a competitive global environment, it is imperative that districts and states deeply develop our leaders and teachers in making the transition to teaching to the CCSS.”
As stated in the Center for Public Education’s “Teaching the Teachers,” Common Core “aim[s] much higher, striving to completely revolutionize the nature of learning and instruction of U.S. classrooms.”
The School District of Philadelphia, The State of New Mexico, and Chicago Public Schools are among the first to utilize the new transformational courses from KDS. These courses were designed for those who have experience implementing the Common Core but need to reach mastery level. Courses include:
- CCSS for School Leaders
- Common Core in ELA: Instructional Shifts for Effective Implementation,
Grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8 & 9-12
- Common Core in Math: Instructional Shifts for Effective Implementation,
Grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8 & 9-12
- Common Core: Implementing the Writing Standards
Grades K-5, 6-8 & 9-12
- Differentiating Instruction Using the CCSS
- Assessment and the Common Core
- Nine additional courses on diverse learners, ELLs, curriculum, collaborative planning, and more
KDS’ Common Core courses feature expert commentary, grade-specific classroom demonstrations, and practical application activities for immediate implementation. The new courses follow the KDS blended delivery approach, which is based on research that shows effective PD requires at least 50 hours of professional learning—including coaching, modeling, observation, and feedback. This high-quality learning is grounded in effective teacher practice, which includes interviews, experts in action, model lessons, and real classroom footage. Districts implementing KDS courses have online coaches to support teachers as they transition their practice, as well as face to face coaching to support the transformation in their classrooms.
The KDS approach is backed by research from Linda Darling-Hammond that says sustained PD is critical: “Time after time, research concludes that only high-quality, sustained, collaborative, and intensive professional learning directly and positively affects student achievement.” (2010) Traditional PD sessions delivered “lecture-style” don’t change teacher practice or improve student learning. “A review of high-quality experimental studies found that among programs offering extended PD (49 hours on average over 6 to 12 months), student achievement increased by 21 percentile points.” (Yoon et al., 2007)
“What makes the KDS model unique is that we plan collaboratively with our partners—both subject matter experts and coaches—to deliver blended professional development to educators including instruction, coaching, and opportunities to practice and collaborate,” says Anne Kaplan, KDS’ VP of Learning Design and Development. “KDS has created new Common Core courses to meet one of the most pressing learning needs of educators today—which is to effectively implement the standards across their schools so that students are college and career ready.”
About Knowledge Delivery Systems
Knowledge Delivery Systems (KDS) is the leading provider of research-based, blended-model strategic professional development solutions for districts, schools, and teachers. KDS’ mission is to help school districts and states transform professional development to dramatically improve teacher effectiveness and raise student achievement. KDS solutions systematically build district-wide capacity to address their most important challenges - closing the achievement gap,Common Core instruction and assessments, cultural competency, diverse learners and differentiation, coaching and instructional leadership, and 1-to-1 classrooms. KDS online courses are developed by the nation’s leading education experts and researchers and are delivered on the KDS Professional Learning Platform (PLP). The PLP leverages the effectiveness of learning communities to provide the latest collaborative and virtual learning tools and personalized learning experiences to make educator learning engaging, convenient and social. (kdsi.org)