In this workshop, we will investigate the implications of the new standards for the community college classroom. Dr. Betina Hsieh, an assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Education at California State University, Long Beach, will provide an introduction to Common Core: how the new standards differ from the old, how the changes affect K-12 classrooms, how teachers are being trained to teach to these new standards and what the implications might be for community college classroom practice. Participants will have the opportunity to meet in discipline-specific groups to explore how the new emphasis on critical thinking, writing and problem-solving throughout the K-12 curriculum imply new ways of thinking and suggest important possibilities for the way we teach and support our students in the future.
Dr. Betina Hsieh is an assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Education at California State University, Long Beach where she teaches general methods and content literacy courses to preservice teachers. Her teacher education work is informed by a decade of urban secondary school classroom teaching (in English, Mathematics, and Social Studies), several years of literacy coaching (K-12), and her tenure as co-director of the Bay Area Writing Project where she worked with K-College instructors. Through her professional work, she has supported several urban school districts in their transition to implementing the Common Core Standards throughout California. Her research interests include the development of cross-content collaboration and 21st century literacy practices in schools, universities, and among preservice teachers; she is also currently working on a book project on critical thinking skills as the link between all subject areas in the new standards movement.