Connecticut Core Standards

Career and Technical Education

Units

Understanding/Implementing CT Core Standards in the Classroom

General Overview of the Common Core State Standards

Common Core State Standards

Common Core Implementation for All Students

Classroom Resources

Toolkits and Materials

  • VISIBLE THINKING This website is for teachers, school leaders and administrators in K-12 schools who want to encourage the development of a culture of thinking. Many resources for classroom use are described in detail. (visiblethinkingpz.org) 
  • See, Think, Wonder Visible Thinking Routine – This is a routine for exploring works of art/photographs and other interesting things; it encourages students to make careful observations, thoughtful interpretations, and sets the stage for inquiry. (visiblethinkingpz.org)    
  • See-Wonder-Think Strategy Sample Video Lesson demonstrates a routine that helps students to analyze and interpret art and/or photography. It was developed by Visual Thinking. (teachingchannel.org) 
  • SweetSearch is a search engine designed for students that lists websites reviewed by a team of educators. It also provides social media tools that enable users to send their results to others. (sweetsearch.com) 
  • WebTools4U2Use--Finding the Right Tool (webtools4u2use.wikispaces.com)
  • Newsela’s Text Sets ToolkitThis Learning & Support feature contains various resources to help educators to understand what text sets are, how to create their own text sets, how to edit them, how to use text sets in their classrooms…and more. (newsela.com)  
Resource Libraries
  • Connecticut State Department of Education CTE Web Page  
  • National Research Center for Career and Technical Education—This website provides teachers with evidence-based solutions to better engage students in the school experience; recommendations on how to improve academic as well as technical achievement; and findings on how to improve the transition of college and career ready young people from high school to continuing education beyond high school (nrccte.org)
  • Learning that Works for America—Common Career Technical Core- This website provides news about CTE programs and professional development opportunities including a state by state update on the changes in CTE around the country. (careertech.org)
  • iCONN, a comprehensive search engine for educators and students – provides all students, teachers and administrators with free online access to a wealth of essential library and information resources from trustworthy sources. It is freely accessible from every school, library, and home. Access from home requires a public library card. (iconn.org)
  • Open Professionals Education NetworkThis website provides openly licensed education content that can be used in whole or in part. It includes links to photos, videos, audio/music, general recorded lectures & video tutorials, open textbooks, simulations and animation, as well as modular course components and complete courses. (open4us.org)
  • CommonLit—This website offers teachers a free collection organized by theme and Lexile level of news articles, poems, short stories, historical documents, complex nonfiction texts (including paired texts), related multimedia (videos, audio, and interactive websites, teacher guides, parent guides, text-dependent questions, and discussion questions. A new text view allows students to interact with the text on laptops and other one-to-one devices.(commonlit.org)  
  • CommonLit - The best reading passages and tools for the best price: FREE  (commonlit.org) 
  • Tween TribuneThis news website by the Smithsonian provides daily news articles for students. Articles are selected by professional journalists working in collaboration with teachers and students. As a Smithsonian resource, it has a plethora of science and history focused articles. There are also articles in Spanish, different lexile levels, technology, a junior version for grades K-4 and more. (tweentribune.com)  
  • Literacy in the Digital Age: Five Sites with High Quality Informational Textby Steve Figurelli and Natalie Franzi, August 19, 2015 posted on Tcher’s Voice, a blog series from Teaching Channel with Student Achievement Partners about digital literacy tools and their effective use by educators: (teachingchannel.org)  
  • The Washington Post Newspaper in Education Program allows all teachers to access topical NIE Curriculum Guides on a variety of topics in all subject areas. Common Core Standards aligned to the suggested activities are listed at the end of the most recent curriculum guides.  (nie.washingtonpost.com)
  • OpenEd offers Common Core resources in a K-12 educational resource catalog (opened.io)
  • Newsela’s SPANISH articles – These articles are available on a wide variety of topics and reading levels, in both Spanish and English.(newsela.com)  
  • SELA website provides teachers and students nonfiction articles that are Common Core aligned. Each article offers a choice of five different Lexile levels, making it easy for an entire class to read the same content, but at level that is just right for each student. High interest articles are updated daily on such topics as: War and Peace, Science, Kids, Money, Law, Health and Arts.(newsela.com)
  • FYI for Kids is a collection of engaging and high-quality magazine articles designed to enhance the Common Core classroom’s reading repertoire. The objective of this project is to demonstrate a type of text that is essential for increasing students’ engagement in and proficiency with complex texts—short engaging articles that communicate critical information. (textproject.org)
Resources for Lesson/Unit Development

Video Resources

Video Libraries

Professional Development
  • iTunes U Courses, Created by Teachers for Teachers - These iTunes U courses were developed by a group of classroom teachers to explain the Shifts in ELA / Literacy and mathematics required by the Common Core. Presented in partnership with The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), they showcase a combination of materials from achievethecore.org as well as additional curated resources and interactive activities. These courses were designed to provide a robust self-learning opportunity for individual teachers and to offer high-quality, credible materials that can be used to support professional learning communities in schools. (achievethecore.org) 
  • Professional Development: Introduction to Literacy Shifts in Content Areas—a 1-4 hour module that provides an introduction to the key shifts required by the CCSS for Literacy in the content areas: history / social studies, science, and technical subjects. (achievethecore.org)
  • NASDCTEc hosts WEBINARS on a variety of topics and pressing issues of interest to the CTE community and others. These webinars bring NASDCTEc staff together with leading experts from across the nation to share their expertise on issues including policy, research and best practices. Participants can take full advantage of these opportunities by asking questions during the live session, or you can follow up with comments and questions afterwards. (careertech.org)
  • 40 Resources and Tools for Deeper Learning: Resources include a video series with supporting materials including rubrics, lesson plans, research, and strategy documents. (teachingchannel.org)