P21 Common Core Toolkit

            The sample lesson plans given in the article offer a lot of opportunity for informal assessment. For example, the second lesson has students developing presentations to persuade the class to support a micro-financing proposal that they believe in. At the end of all of the presentations, the class would vote on the proposal that they liked the best. The presentation itself is a great opportunity for the teacher to assess how well the students researched and understand the proposal, and how well they can put into words their understanding of the proposal. A question and answer segment at the end of each presentation would be a great way for the teacher to see if the students actually understand the ideas of the proposal or have just memorized facts.

A successful presentation such as this would require students to have a solid understanding of socioeconomic-specific concepts and terms. As such, formal assessments, in particular tests could easily be built into this lesson. Students could be tested on their understanding of the financial terms that they came across in their research. Short answer questions could have students demonstrating their critical thinking skills by explaining the economic and social effects a certain proposal may have. Lastly, students could be asked to draft their own proposal as an assessment of their overall understanding of the lesson as a whole.

As the difficulty of the three assessments I just presented vary, it would be up the teacher to determine what type of assessment is appropriate for the students in his/her class. With a class of struggling readers, it would be unproductive to ask them to find the social and economic effects of a new proposal because they would spend a large portion of time just attempting to read and understand the new proposal. Instead, a class like this could be tested on and asked to explain the social and economic effects of the winning proposal because they are already familiar with that proposal. Contrary to popular belief, the CCLS does not require a one size fits all curriculums, but rather, it encourage teachers to understand his/her classroom and find the best way to address the standards for that particular group.