According to our readings this week, from the Common Core Initiative website,
"The Common Core
concentrates on a clear set of math skills and concepts. Students will learn
concepts in a more organized way both during the school year and across grades.
The standards encourage students to solve real-world problems."
I am excited about this interpretation of Common Core, and support it, however as teachers we have to interpret how it applies to our own students. Solving "real world problems" can mean different things to different groups of students. A recent example seen in my class last week was a mathematics word problem on practicing hours for lacrosse. Not only did my students have trouble decoding the word itself, most had no concept on what exactly lacrosse was...
As teachers it is one of our greatest challenges to make our curriculum accessible to all students. Interpreting what real-world problems are for our students is just another challenge we face when using pre-designed curriculums.
Additionally, the readings provided a "talking points" document published about Common Core from AMTE.net. It sates that "According to the Common Core State Standards, students are expected to know basic facts from memory. Fluency with the standard algorithm is an explicit expectation for each operation on whole numbers and decimals". I think it is very important to remember that Common core is not just about critical thinking. It also encourages our students to be fluent at basic mathematics algorithms. I feel that this point often gets glossed over in our evaluation of the Common Core Standards.
Erica thank you for highlighting the fact that not only does the CCSS call for a deep conceptual understanding it also calls for students to develop a fluency with the algorithms. So often the CCSS gets criticized for being to conceptual when in fact what it calls for is progressive formalization. Through real-world applications students learn how the mathematics works and after they have gained that deep understanding we present the algorithm and build fluency.
ReplyDeleteIt is definitely a shame that current curriculum's don't allow for that progressive formalization to take place and don't allow for the diversity of student needs. While I definitely like the program that we are using in our school I find that it is too conceptual leaving no room for building fluency with the algorithm. It is a double edged sword. On the one had you want to do what is best for your students and teach them in a way that they'll best understand and on the other hand we are being asked to obtain proficient scores on a (problematic) test from our students to prove our worth as educators.
As some of you have mentioned CCSS has its problems, but if teaches are able to have professional development that focuses on how to effectively teach common core it would be extremely helpful. At my school we have so many resources that we haven't even been able to explore them all to see which ones are the most effective. I strongly feel that Common Core will be effective if we are able to stick with it long enough to see its impact on education. Common Core requires students to perform real world task which allowances students to make sense of why they are learning the content. In the meantime, educators must continue to use best practices and our own judgement on how best to instruct students.
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