Engage NY

EngageNY.org is developed and maintained by the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to support the implementation of key aspects of the New York State Board of Regents Reform Agenda. This is the official web site for current materials and resources related to the Regents Reform Agenda. The agenda includes the implementation of the New York State P-12 Common Core Learning Standards (CCLS), Teacher and Leader Effectiveness (TLE), and Data-Driven Instruction (DDI). EngageNY.org is dedicated to providing educators across New York State with real-time, professional learning tools and resources to support educators in reaching the State‰ŰŞs vision for a college- and career-ready education for all students.

Material Type: Reading

Intensive Interventions for Students Struggling in Reading and Mathematics

This 60-page research-based guide provides the best practices for teaching students with learning difficulties in math and reading. The highlighted interventions include supporting cognitive processing, intensifying instructional delivery, increasing learning time, and reducing group size. The article also provides suggestions for further reading and three examples of how lessons can be modified to include these recommendations.

Material Type: Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Christy S. Murray, Greg Roberts, Jeanne Wanzek, Sharon Vaughn

Deep Dive into the Math Shifts

This module fosters a careful understanding of the Common Core State Standards math shifts. Participants take a deep dive into the major work of grades K-8, build a deeper understanding of the coherence of the Standards, and work through sample problems that reflect the "rigor" expected by the Standards.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study

Introduction to the Math Shifts

This module provides participants with an introduction to the key shifts required by the Common Core State Standards for Math. Depending on the activities selected, this module could support up to four hours of Math PD.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study

The Mathematics Standards: How They Were Developed and Who Was Involved

This presents a general discussion of the development of the Common Core Mathematics Standards and the aspirations within them for student college-and-career readiness and success.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Jason Zimba, William McCallum

Meteorology: An Educator's Resource for Inquiry-Based Learning for Grades 5-9

This guide aims to assist educators in instilling interest in learning about meteorology by allowing the learner to take increasing responsibility for his/her learning. It is written as a supplement to existing Earth and space science curricula. The guide is not intended to be a complete course in meteorology; it should be used in conjunction with lectures, discussions, textbooks and other teaching material. The learner should understand "how we arrive at what we know," rather than memorizing what we know. This publication was developed to enhance the understanding of inquiry-based learning from the educator/teacher’s perspective as well as from the learner’s perspective.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive, Lesson Plan

Asking Questions, All the Time

The ability to ask and answer questions while reading is essential to comprehension. This article discusses instructional strategies used to teach questioning and provides many online resources. The article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, which explores the seven essential principles of the climate sciences for teachers in k-grade 5 classrooms.

Material Type: Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Jessica Fries-Gaither, National Science Foundation

Complete Guide to Creating Text Dependent Questions

Thorough explanation of the how and why of text-dependent questions for close, analytic reading. Includes examples. The Common Core State Standards for reading strongly focus on students gathering evidence, knowledge, and insight from what they read. Indeed, eighty to ninety percent of the Reading Standards in each grade require text dependent analysis; accordingly, aligned curriculum materials should have a similar percentage of text dependent questions. As the name suggests, a text dependent question specifically asks a question that can only be answered by referring explicitly back to the text being read. It does not rely on any particular background information extraneous to the text nor depend on students having other experiences or knowledge; instead it privileges the text itself and what students can extract from what is before them.

Material Type: Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Measuring Text Complexity

Rather than focusing exclusively on literacy skills, the Common Core State Standards set expectations for the complexity of texts students need to be able to read to be ready for college and careers. This resource outlines three steps that will help teachers choose texts that are on grade level for the CCSS.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy

What Does Text Complexity Mean for English Learners and Language Minority Students?

This paper addresses the implications, for ELLs, of the new standard's requirement that students be able to read and understand complex, informationally dense texts. The authors discuss the types of supports that learners need in order to work with complex texts. They also provide a sample of what academic discourse involves, using an excerpt from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail. They demonstrate how English learners can be provided with strategies for accessing complex texts, such as closely examining one sentence at a time. The authors argue that instruction must go beyond vocabulary and should begin with an examination of our beliefs about language, literacy and learning.

Material Type: Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Charles j. Fillmore, Lily Wong Fillmore

Flows of Reading: Engaging With Texts

While common usage of the word, text, often refers to written or printed matter, literary and cultural theory extends the term to refer to any coherent set of symbols that transmit meaning to those who know how to read them. In an age where ideas may take many forms and be expressed across different media, texts and reading take on new implications.One goal of the Flows of Reading project is to inspire teachers and students to reflect on what can be considered as reading and what kinds of reading they perform in their everyday lives. Flows of Reading introduces an expanded concept of the term, text, and models a new type of readerĺ䁥ŕone who reads across different media and who understands reading as an activity of sharing, deconstructing, and making meaning.We have created a rich environment designed to encourage close critical engagement not only with Moby-Dick but a range of other texts, including the childrenĺ䁥_s picture book, Flotsam; Harry Potter; Hunger Games; and Lord of the Rings. We want to demonstrate that the bookĺ䁥_s approach can be applied to many different kinds of texts and may revitalize how we teach a diversity of forms of human expression.

Material Type: Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Erin Reilly, Henry Jenkins, Ritesh Mehta

Creating Text Sets for Whole-Class Instruction

Students are more likely to meet Common Core expectations for reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language if they are working with texts on a regular basis. Organizing a curriculum around a series of text sets can provide those opportunities for students. This organization is supported by the PARCC Model Content Frameworks.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

This activity engages learners in exploring the impact of climate change on arctic sea ice in the Bering Sea. They graph and analyze sea ice extent data, conduct a lab on thermal expansion of water, and then observe how a scientist collects long-term data on a bird population.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Full Course

Authors: Alaska SeaGrant, Alaska Seas and Rivers Curriculum

Android Pendulums

Students investigate the motion of a simple pendulum through direct observation and data collection using Android® devices. First, student groups create pendulums that hang from the classroom ceiling, using Android smartphones or tablets as the bobs, taking advantage of their built-in accelerometers. With the Android devices loaded with the (provided) AccelDataCapture app, groups explore the periodic motion of the pendulums, changing variables (amplitude, mass, length) to see what happens, by visual observation and via the app-generated graphs. Then teams conduct formal experiments to alter one variable while keeping all other parameters constant, performing numerous trials, identifying independent/dependent variables, collecting data and using the simple pendulum equation. Through these experiments, students investigate how pendulums move and the changing forces they experience, better understanding the relationship between a pendulum's motion and its amplitude, length and mass. They analyze the data, either on paper or by importing into a spreadsheet application. As an extension, students may also develop their own algorithms in a provided App Inventor framework in order to automatically note the time of each period.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Doug Bertelsen

Android Acceleration

Students prepare for the associated activity in which they investigate acceleration by collecting acceleration vs. time data using the accelerometer of a sliding Android device. Based on the experimental set-up for the activity, students form hypotheses about the acceleration of the device. Students will investigate how the force on the device changes according to Newton's Second Law. Different types of acceleration, including average, instantaneous and constant acceleration, are introduced. Acceleration and force is described mathematically and in terms of processes and applications.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Authors: Brian Sandall, Scott Burns

Flood Analysis

Students learn how to use and graph real-world stream gage data to create event and annual hydrographs and calculate flood frequency statistics. Using an Excel spreadsheet of real-world event, annual and peak streamflow data, they manipulate the data (converting units, sorting, ranking, plotting), solve problems using equations, and calculate return periods and probabilities. Prompted by worksheet questions, they analyze the runoff data as engineers would. Students learn how hydrographs help engineers make decisions and recommendations to community stakeholders concerning water resources and flooding.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Emily Gill, Malinda Schaefer Zarske

Forces and Graphing

Use this activity to explore forces acting on objects, practice graphing experimental data, and introduce the algebra concepts of slope and intercept of a line. A wooden 2 x 4 beam is set on top of two scales. Students learn how to conduct an experiment by applying loads at different locations along the beam, recording the exact position of the applied load and the reaction forces measured by the scales at each end of the beam. In addition, students analyze the experiment data with the use of a chart and a table, and model/graph linear equations to describe relationships between independent and dependent variables.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Ivanka Todorova, Jed Lyons, John Brader, Veronica Addison

Graphing Your Social Network

Students analyze their social networks using graph theory. They gather data on their own social relationships, either from Facebook interactions or the interactions they have throughout the course of a day, recording it in Microsoft Excel and using Cytoscape (a free, downloadable application) to generate social network graphs that visually illustrate the key persons (nodes) and connections between them (edges). The nodes in the Cytoscape graphs are color-coded and sized according to the importance of the node (in this activity, nodes are people in students' social networks). After the analysis, the graphs are further examined to see what can be learned from the visual representation. Students gain practice with graph theory vocabulary, including node, edge, betweeness centrality and degree on interaction, and learn about a range of engineering applications of graph theory.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Brian Sandall, Ramsey Young

Means, Modes and Medians

Students experience data collection, analysis and inquiry in this LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT -based activity. They measure the position of an oscillating platform using a ultrasonic sensor and perform statistical analysis to determine the mean, mode, median, percent difference and percent error for the collected data.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Irina Igel, Noam Pillischer, Ronald Poveda

Here Comes the Hurricane! Saving Lives through Logical Reasoning and Computer Science

Students use a hurricane tracking map to measure the distance from a specific latitude and longitude location of the eye of a hurricane to a city. Then they use the map's scale factor to convert the distance to miles. They also apply the distance formula by creating an x-y coordinate plane on the map. Students are challenged to analyze what data might be used by computer science engineers to write code that generates hurricane tracking models. Then students analyze a MATLAB® computer code that uses the distance formula repetitively to generate a table of data that tracks a hurricane at specific time intervals. Students come to realize that using a computer program to generate the calculations (instead of by hand) is very advantageous for a dynamic situation like tracking storm movements. Their inspection of some MATLAB code helps them understand how it communicates what to do using mathematical formulas, logical instructions and repeated tasks. They also conclude that the example program is too simplistic to really be a useful tool; useful computer model tools must necessarily be much more complex.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Armando Vital, Fritz Claydon, Justin Chang, K. B. Nakshatrala, Rodrigues, Stuart Long