Learning from Norway’s National Curriculum to Refine the Common Core Standards

1. ®

3. http://youtu.be/-yA6oTU1emM

4. Key points
• Schooling was designed for a different kind of
world in regards to work and information access.
• To redesign schools, we have to start with what
we want students to be able to do and then write
the curriculum.
• He doesn’t sound like a fan of standards…but
they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Pragmatically speaking, how can we move in a
direction of improvement?

5. Steps for Change *I’m an optimist!+
1. Articulate what we want students to be able to
do.
2. Assess how well/poorly our standards are
preparing students for the new information and
work context.
3. Identify what is irrelevant. Throw those
standards out or look for successful models to
help in revision.
4. Re-align instruction, assessments, teacher
training, policies, and other structures.

6. How would we pick a model?
• Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA): USA ranks 14th
• Gross Domestic Product per Capita: USA ranks
6th
• Countries consistently out-performing the USA
in these measures include:
– Norway
– Switzerland

7. Norwegian Schools Overview
• Significant improvements in PISA 2009 scores
• Mandatory education up to completion of year 10 (typically
16 year olds) curriculum.
• Upper secondary education is an additional 3 years.
• Very very few privately funded schools
• Schools are selective and offer specialties
• Annual standardized tests are both written and oral.
Individual teachers and teacher panels are trusted to grade.
• Purpose “Every student should be able to think for
themselves.”
• Staunch cultural value of social justice and equity that
drives the design and practice of mandatory education.

9. Step 1: What do we want US students to be able to do?
• Goal of the Common Core: “college and career readiness”
(Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010)
• Goal of Georgia Schools: preparation for employment
(Georgia Department of Education, 2009)
• Less than 6% of jobs in the United States are low-skill jobs
of the Agricultural and Industrial eras, and most employers
of today’s Knowledge Economy are looking for high-skilled
creative workers. (Kopczuk and Saez, 2004)
Why am I not focusing on “college readiness”? (Bui, 2013)

10. Work in the Knowledge Economy (see YELLOW codebook/rubric)
• Creativity
• Digital Literacy
• English Language Literacy
• Information Literacy
• Interpersonal Participation in Learning Society
• Intrapersonal Skills of Life-Long Learning
• Media Literacy
• Numeracy
• Problem-Solving
• Systems Thinking

11. The Curricula
• GPS (Georgia Performance Standards)
– English Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies
– 8th grade
• CC (Common Core)
– English Language Arts and Math
– 8th grade
• CCGPS
– English Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies
– 8th grade
• NOR (Norwegian National Curriculum)
– Norwegian, English Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies
– 10th grade
• NOR-E/M
– English Language Arts and Math
– 10th grade

12. Step 2: Assess our curriculum
Curriculum alignment research including the Curriculum Audit (English & Steffy, 2001, p.88)
and the Balanced Curriculum (Squires, 2009, p. 88) evaluate the relationships between the
written, taught, and tested curricula. The terms intended, enacted, and assessed are also
similarly represented in the literature (Porter & Smithson, 2001).

13. Goal-Curriculum Alignment Measures (G-CAM)
• Building on Andrew Porter’s Surveys of Enacted Curriculum
(2001) and Fenwick English’s Curriculum Audit (1988)
• Content Analysis (Neuendorf, 2002)
– Rooted in hypothesis testing (Krippendorf. 1980)
• Multiple Coders (2-5)
• Tested for Reliability (Pearson’s r>0.70)
• Publication of G-CAM (in submission)
• Presenting at AERA 2013 in San Francisco
• Further methodological explanation available through request
to avega4@kennesaw.edu or LokeyVega@CurriculumRD.com

14. G-CAM Table
GPS CC CCGPS NOR NOR_EM
Balance 0.8306 0.9635 0.8220 0.831251021 1.0000
Relevance 0.6142 0.8720 0.4890 0.605095541 1.0000

15. G-CAM Model: Norway vs. Common Core
English/Math Curricula
G-CAM MODEL
NOR_EM
1.00
CC
0.90
0.80
0.70
0.60
BALANCE
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.20
0.10
0.00
0.00 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00
RELEVANCE

16. G-CAM Model: Norway vs. CCGPS
Whole Curricula
G-CAM MODEL
1.00
0.90 CC_GPS
NOR
0.80
0.70
BALANCE
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.20
0.10
0.00
0.00 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00
RELEVANCE

17. G-CAM: All curricula
G-CAM MODEL
NOR_EM
1.00
CC
0.90
CC_GPS NOR
0.80 GPS
0.70
BALANCE
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.20
0.10
0.00
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
1.00
RELEVANCE

18. Which themes are least/most prevalent?
Manifest Themes: ALL CURRICULA
0.6000
0.5000
0.4000
PRESENCE (P)
0.3000
0.2000
GPS
0.1000 CC
CCGPS
0.0000
NOR
NOR_EM

19. Which themes are least/most prevalent?
Common Core vs. Norway
Manifest Themes: English/Math ONLY
0.6000
0.5000
0.4000
0.3000
0.2000
0.1000
0.0000 CC
NOR_EM

20. Which themes are least/most prevalent?
Whole Curricula
Manifest Themes: Whole Curricula
0.3500
0.3000
0.2500
0.2000
0.1500
0.1000
0.0500 GPS
CCGPS
0.0000
NOR

21. How are we doing?
“The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear
understanding of what students are expected to learn, so
teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them.
The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real
world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people
need for success in college and careers. With American students
fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best
positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.” –
CCSS mission statement

22. First, Let’s Celebrate!
• We are doing pretty good with information
literacy!
• Our English and Math Curricula could be
stronger, but they are NOT full of irrelevant
material like other subjects.

23. Why does it matter how standards are written?
• Look at your ASCD session titles…
• If its not explicitly in the standards, is on the
tests? Is it taught?
• How do teachers interpret curriculum
standards in order to plan instruction?
– Sample (green handout)
– Audience (assumed), Behavior, Condition, Degree

24. If you add it after the later = LACK of alignment

25. Step 3: Now, Let’s Get Better!
• Reduce the amount of irrelevant content found in
other subject areas.
• We need all curricular subjects to address more
of the skills/themes necessary to prepare student
for careers in today’s economy. We have big gaps!
• We have far more curriculum standards for the
whole curriculum than Norway. Why is this so?
They are addressing more skills than we are in
fewer standards. CCGPS (n=364) NOR (n=157)

26. Creativity (see YELLOW codebook/rubric)
• CC: Develop the topic with relevant, well-chosen
facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or
other information and examples. (68WSHT2.b)
• NOR: use various media, sources and aesthetic
expressions in personal texts relating to the
Norwegian subject curriculum and
interdisciplinary texts (NN10.C02)

27. Continuous Improvement of the CC
If we were to revise this [68WSHT2.b] CC standard to better
prepare students to be creative, what language might we use
based on what we learn from Norway’s example?
Develop a student-initiated topic with relevant, well-chosen
facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other
information and examples using various media, sources and
aesthetic expressions .
How might the taught curriculum look different?
How might the tested curriculum look different?

28. Work in Small Groups
• Time: TBA
• Handout: “Learning from Norway to Revise
the Common Core” (OFF-WHITE/Beige)
• Select a spokesperson to share

29. Digital Literacy
• CC: Understand that a two-dimensional figure is
congruent to another if the second can be obtained
from the first by a sequence of
rotations, reflections, and translations; given two
congruent figures, describe a sequence that exhibits
the congruence between them. (8.G1.2)
• NOR: analyze, including digitally, characteristics of two-
and three-dimensional figures and use them for
constructions and calculations (NM10.G01)

30. Interpersonal Participation in Learning Society
• CC: Write arguments focused on discipline-
specific content. (68.WSHT1)
• NOR: give simple lectures, presentations and
readings with interpretations, and participate
in role play and dramatization, adapted to
different recipients (NN10.O07)

31. Intrapersonal Skills of Life-Long Learning
• CC: Spell correctly (8.L2.c).
• NOR: describe and assess his/her own work in
learning English NE10.L05); identify important
linguistic similarities and differences between
English and the native language and use this
knowledge in his or her own language learning
(NE10.L02); give grounds for personal choices of
literature and reading material based on
knowledge of reading strategies (N10.W06)

32. Media Literacy
• CC: Cite specific textual evidence to support
analysis of science and technical texts. (68.RST1)
• NOR: search for and select sources, assess them
critically and show how different sources might
present history differently (NSS10.H04); use texts
taken from libraries, the internet and mass media
in a critical manner, discuss and elaborate on the
texts and acknowledge the sources used
(NN10.W14)

33. Problem-Solving
• CCGPS: Follow precisely a multistep procedure when
carrying out experiments, taking measurements, or
performing technical tasks. (68.RST3)
• Describe the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
(SS8CG1.c)
• NOR: plan, carry out and present problem-oriented
sociological surveys and assess the work process and
the results (NSS10.S01); make a plan for starting and
operating an enterprise based on a survey to
determine the basis for such an enterprise (NSS10.S03)

34. Systems Thinking
• CCGPS: The student will explain the benefits
of free trade (SS8E2)
• NOR: describe the universe and different
theories of how it has developed (NS10.U01);
describe the main characteristics of the
Norwegian economy and how our economy is
connected to the global economy (NSS10.S13)

35. Let’s raise the bar:
Digital Literacy, Information Literacy, & Numeracy
• CC: Know that straight lines are widely used to
model relationships between two quantitative
variables. For scatter plots that suggest a linear
association, informally fit a straight line, and
informally assess the model fit by judging the
closeness of the data points to the line. (8.SP1.2)
• NOR: carry out investigations and use databases
to search for and analyze statistical data and
demonstrate source criticism (NM10.SP01)

36. Let’s try 3rd grade CC Math…
CC: Tell and write time to the nearest minute and
measure time intervals in minutes. Solve word
problems involving addition and subtraction of time
intervals in minutes, e.g., by representing the
problem on a number line diagram (3MD.A.1)
Interpersonal Skills of
Participating in a Knowledge Society (?)
Problem-Solving (?)
Systems Thinking (?)

37. Curricular Supplements
What key patterns do you notice between the
instructional practices and materials of the
original standard and our revised standards?
How would the revised standards affect mastery
of the originals?
Feedback and Thoughts?

38. How might the revised standards affect our bar graph?
Manifest Themes: Whole Curricula
0.3500
0.3000
0.2500
0.2000
0.1500
0.1000
0.0500 GPS
CCGPS
0.0000
NOR

39. Would the revised standards better support the
CCSS mission?
“The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear
understanding of what students are expected to learn, so
teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them.
The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real
world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people
need for success in college and careers. With American students
fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best
positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.” –
CCSS mission statement

40. Step 4?
Re-align instruction, assessments, teacher
training, policies, and other structures.

41. I Propose REVISION of the CC for Continuous
Improvement of College and Career Readiness
“‘Rapid iteration,’ ‘living in perpetual beta,’ and
other ideas related to quickly trying
things, getting feedback to see if they
worked, and adjusting course accordingly are all
extremely important, particularly in a rapidly-
changing world.” –Scott McLeod, 2013

42. Detailed Reference List Available
• Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010
• Georgia Department of Education, 2009
• Kopczuk and Saez, 2004
• Bui, 2013
• Schweizer Medieninstitut furBildung und Kultur, 2011; Ministry of
Education and Research, 2011
• English & Steffy, 2001
• Squires, 2009
• Porter & Smithson, 2001
• Neuendorf, 2002
• Krippendorf. 1980
• Scott McLeod, 2013

43. Special Thanks
Dr. Geir Moen
Toyen Skole
of Oslo, Norway
And the many teachers and administrators of
Oslo’s public schools for welcoming me to Oslo
and for their contributions in assisting in the
data collection process to ensure accurate
representation of Norway’s curriculum.

44. Contact Information
Anissa Lokey-Vega
Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology and
Consultant
Kennesaw State University
AVega4@kennesaw.edu
Or
Curriculum Research and Development
LokeyVega@CurriculumRD.com