Common Core State Standards & Digital Curriculum

“I want all students to be able to learn from digital textbooks.”

- PRESIDENT OBAMA, 2011 State of the Union Address

No longer will students have to tote 50-pound backpacks with outdated print textbooks. New digital curricular materials will be light digital devices – such as a laptop or tablet – that combine Internet connectivity, interactive and personalized content, learning videos and games, and other creative applications to enable collaboration with other students while providing instantaneous feedback to the student and teacher. Digital textbooks can revolutionize teaching and are not simply the digital form of static textbooks. They will streamline the delivery of Common Core curriculum and assessments.

What are the Standards?

The Common Core State Standards are a set of high-quality academic expectations in English-language arts (ELA) and mathematics that define both the knowledge and skills all students should master by the end of each grade level in order to be on track for success in college and career.

What’s Different with The New Standards?

Shifts in English Language Arts (ELA)

Shifts in Mathematics

Implementation and Testing

Hawaii is implementing Common Core standards for grades K-2, 11 and 12 in the 2012-13 school year; all grades will follow in 2013-14. Hawaii also is a governing member of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, which is developing the Smarter Balanced Assessment exam for its 24 member states. Smarter Balanced will replace the Hawaii State Assessment for ELA and math in 2014-15. Similar to the current HSA format, the exam will use Computer Adaptive Testing, which adjusts the difficulty of questions throughout the assessment.

For example, a student who answers a question correctly will receive a more challenging item, while an incorrect answer generates an easier question. By adapting to the student, these assessments present an individually tailored set of questions to each student and can quickly identify which skills students have mastered. This approach represents a significant improvement over traditional paper-and-pencil assessments, providing more accurate scores for all students and better data for teachers.

What Do the Standards Mean?

“Students in the 21st century must be aware of the global nature of our world and be able to select, organize, and design information to be shared, understood, and distributed beyond their classrooms.”

— NATIONAL COUNCIL OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH

Common Core Digital Learning

As part of the work to implement the Common Core State Standards, Hawaii is advancing curriculum and instruction in our schools so our students will graduate prepared for success in college and careers in today’s globally competitive economy. To achieve this goal, the Hawaii State Board of Education and Department of Education aim to provide all school students statewide with up-to-date curricular materials on a digital device such as a tablet or laptop.

The DOE proposes a three-year, phased-in implementation plan for providing each child with a digital curriculum, starting with $29.375 million in the Fiscal Biennium 2013-15 Budget ($7.125M in FY14 and $22.25M in FY15). This initiative takes advantage of ongoing DOE efforts such as new technology for learning and the state’s broadband infrastructure while addressing some long-standing challenges facing our public schools. Digital devices:


	Common Core State Standards and Digital Curriculum Hawaii State Department of Education
search text doe.k12.hi.us k12.hi.us	“I want all students to be able to learn from digital textbooks.” - PRESIDENT OBAMA, 2011 State of the Union Address No longer will students have to tote 50-pound backpacks with outdated print textbooks. New digital curricular materials will be light digital devices – such as a laptop or tablet – that combine Internet connectivity, interactive and personalized content, learning videos and games, and other creative applications to enable collaboration with other students while providing instantaneous feedback to the student and teacher. Digital textbooks can revolutionize teaching and are not simply the digital form of static textbooks. They will streamline the delivery of Common Core curriculum and assessments. What are the Standards? The Common Core State Standards are a set of high-quality academic expectations in English-language arts (ELA) and mathematics that define both the knowledge and skills all students should master by the end of each grade level in order to be on track for success in college and career. The standards establish consistent learning goals for all students – regardless of where they live – so that children will know where they are on the path to college- and career-readiness even when moving to a different school or state. (In 2009, about 6,513 school-aged children moved to Hawaii from another state, and about 10,371 students moved from Hawaii to another state.) A clear roadmap of academic expectations allows students, parents and teachers to collaborate on shared goals. The standards are relevant to the real world: knowledge and skills students will need to succeed in life after high school, in both post-secondary education, and a globally competitive workforce. A diverse team developed the Common Core standards to be academically rigorous, attainable for students, and practical for teachers and districts. What’s Different with The New Standards? Shifts in English Language Arts (ELA) Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction and informational texts in addition to literature Reading and writing grounded in evidence from text Regular practice with complex text and its academic vocabulary (words like commit and synthesize) Shifts in Mathematics Focus: 2-4 critical areas focused on deeply in each grade Coherence: Concepts logically connected from one grade to the next and linked to other major topics within the grade Rigor: Fluency with arithmetic, application of knowledge to real world situations, and deep understanding of mathematical concepts Implementation and Testing Hawaii is implementing Common Core standards for grades K-2, 11 and 12 in the 2012-13 school year; all grades will follow in 2013-14. Hawaii also is a governing member of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, which is developing the Smarter Balanced Assessment exam for its 24 member states. Smarter Balanced will replace the Hawaii State Assessment for ELA and math in 2014-15. Similar to the current HSA format, the exam will use Computer Adaptive Testing, which adjusts the difficulty of questions throughout the assessment. For example, a student who answers a question correctly will receive a more challenging item, while an incorrect answer generates an easier question. By adapting to the student, these assessments present an individually tailored set of questions to each student and can quickly identify which skills students have mastered. This approach represents a significant improvement over traditional paper-and-pencil assessments, providing more accurate scores for all students and better data for teachers. What Do the Standards Mean? The Common Core State Standards will boost Hawaii’s long-term economic competitiveness because students will graduate high school with real-world skills they need to be successful in college and the workforce. Rigorous educational standards will enable businesses in Hawaii to draw from local talent to meet the needs of the continuously evolving workplace. The Common Core will cut costs over time by enabling states to share best practices and streamline efforts in related areas, such as assessment development, which otherwise would require a much greater investment in time and resources from each individual state. “Students in the 21st century must be aware of the global nature of our world and be able to select, organize, and design information to be shared, understood, and distributed beyond their classrooms.” — NATIONAL COUNCIL OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH Common Core Digital Learning As part of the work to implement the Common Core State Standards, Hawaii is advancing curriculum and instruction in our schools so our students will graduate prepared for success in college and careers in today’s globally competitive economy. To achieve this goal, the Hawaii State Board of Education and Department of Education aim to provide all school students statewide with up-to-date curricular materials on a digital device such as a tablet or laptop. The DOE proposes a three-year, phased-in implementation plan for providing each child with a digital curriculum, starting with $29.375 million in the Fiscal Biennium 2013-15 Budget ($7.125M in FY14 and $22.25M in FY15). This initiative takes advantage of ongoing DOE efforts such as new technology for learning and the state’s broadband infrastructure while addressing some long-standing challenges facing our public schools. Digital devices: Consolidate multiple books, publications, teacher hand-outs, and other learning materials. Allow educators to personalize learning materials, tailored to the needs of the student – in line with the State’s implementation of tiered interventions to support student learning. Cultivate key technical skills for college- and career-readiness by exposing students to technology. Offer extended access to learning through online courses, web-based materials, and teacher-directed activities (with broadband access). Eliminate problem of increasingly outdated, expensive printed learning materials. Helps schools efficiently and effectively administer assessments by using the devices as opposed to cycling students through a computer lab. Hawaii’s Common Core Timeline Additional Resources Official Common Core State Standards Website Transforming Hawaii’s Public Schools Website Common Core Implementation Video Series (CCSSO) and CCSSO's Common Core Resources Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) Achieve the Core Parents’ Guide to Student Success Hawaii's Common Core Standards Toolkit FAQs Learn more on our Frequently Asked Questions page.
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