Saturday, January 31, 2015
Common Core Readings
I found the readings this week both relevant and interesting. Our school just made the switch to Common Core this year. We have adopted to new curriculums Go Math and Journeys. Our teachers are used to making all curriculum in the form of hands on games and activities. The switch to a basal curriculum has been difficult to say the least. Our students, who once felt successful like Chrispen, are struggling to interpret language based math problems. Teachers are frustrated with worksheets from the curriculum. We have the power to integrate our own activities, but no one feels comfortable enough with the concepts to veer from the curriculum! I agree with Zimba, that the problem is not with the standards themselves, but the lack of competent curriculum and quality teacher training.
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Erica, I totally agree with your comment on how the lack of training that teachers have received, regarding common core, is problematic, especially given that we are being asked to think of mathematics instruction in such a radically different way than we were taught.
ReplyDeleteI know that personally it has been difficult to veer away from an answer based way of teaching because it is how math looked like when I was growing up and it is the method that I naturally gravitate towards. The same is true with the language of mathematics that I use in my classroom because it is what I grew up hearing I use it automatically. It takes a lot of conscious effort to undo a lifetime of poor math instruction and it is a shame that our respective school districts would do so little to support their teachers in making these conscious changes.