Texas Adult Education Content Standards & Benchmarks
by Ken Appelt, TCALL Professional Development Specialist
Trainings occurred in all regions of Texas this year on implementing the Texas Adult Education Content Standards & Benchmarks. Programs are increasing the numbers of teachers who have been trained, and many teachers are returning for a “refresher” course on the Content Standards. One reason is that the Content Standards Training was revised in 2008; any trainings taking place after November 10th of 2008 will be the revised training.
The new training spends more time helping teachers understand how to use the Texas Content Standards in their classrooms and in planning instruction. The changes are intended to make the training more meaningful to teachers. Many of the new activities in the revised training were tested and proven successful during the Standards-in-Action Pilot, a national effort to help the states improve standards-based instruction. Read Eduardo Honold’s article in the November 2007 issue of Literacy Links for more information on the Texas pilot project.
One major change in the format of the new training is that it will consist of a 6-hour institute followed by a 3-hour follow-up session conducted 6 to 10 weeks later. The follow-up will give teachers a chance to share with each other how they implemented the Texas Content Standards in their classes and to learn from each other’s experience. A debriefing period in the follow-up session will allow everyone to discuss what went well, what didn’t, and what could be done to improve the classroom implementations.
Another significant change is the emphasis on using the Content Standards to plan coherent units of instruction. These are connected lessons or activities taking place over a longer period of time rather than individual lessons. These units can be project oriented and can incorporate several different content standards and benchmarks. Attention is given in the new training to integrating multiple standards; bring together reading, math, and writing objectives.
The way training in content standards is delivered in Texas has also changed to ensure that the training is consistent and of the highest quality. All trainers for the Texas Content Standards are now recertified in how to conduct the revised training. To maintain quality, training in content standards implementation is now provided exclusively through the eight regional GREAT Centers using the recertified trainers.
Because the training for Adult Education Content Standards implementation is evolving in many states across the country, a Standards Training Committee has been established to track new ideas and keep the Texas training up to date. Going forward, status as a certified Texas Content Standards Trainer must be maintained by participation in a statewide meeting/training conducted by Project GREAT annually or as deemed necessary by Texas LEARNS.
A super resource on the Texas Content Standards was created by Mary Jo Ochoa at the Far West GREAT Center. She has created summary pages of the standards and benchmarks for both ESL and ABE/ASE so that teachers can easily examine how benchmarks for a particular standard change across the six functioning levels or examine all of the standards for a particular level. Find a full description and download them at http://www-tcall.tamu.edu/taesp/westsum/index.html
To find out when Content Standards trainings are scheduled in your region, contact your regional GREAT Center or check the statewide events calendar on the TCALL Website
  
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