ODE website

I really enjoyed/learned a lot from looking at the ODE website. When looking at the challenging high-end learners it was very helpful to look at grade level benchmarks and standards that they must hit. It gave me a good understanding of what they need to learn and also gave me activities to engage them in high-end thinking. I especially like the lesson plan that goes deeper into character analysis. I think this will be a useful tool when I am teaching the outsiders to my class. This section was useful to look at because it gave objectives for each type of TAG student for example; Intellectual or Academic. Also, the graphic organizer section was amazing on what I should have students learn about a character or a section in a book. It gives sheets for character analysis or conflict. This can be very useful in my LA class.

I was looking at sample tests for the 8th grade reading test. I felt that this test was fair because most of the content is covered in class. It is important for teacher to cover this content in-depth in class by providing analysis exercises of characters in books and enriching their vocabulary. I feel that if teachers are covering all of the standards that are required and making sure that students are comprehending, then students will do very well on the state tests. What I don't understand is why some students are doing so poorly on the state testing? Is it because we dont have effective teachers? Or is it language barriers? I would like to see more research done about why some schools arent doing as well as others.

The most valuable tool that I found on this website was to use the searchable standards. I just typed in that I wanted 8th Language Arts and it gave me all of the standards that 8th graders must meet. This was very helpful because this aids me in figuring out what types of lesson plans I will make and what students should be learning when I teach.