We are making some changes to the Illustrative Mathematics website: soon people who register at the site will be able to vote on which tasks they like, to comment on tasks, and to submit tasks directly to the website instead of through our email account. As such, our contest will also have a slightly different flavor and run for a full month instead of the usual two weeks.

The intent of the Illustrative Mathematics website is to present sets of tasks that, when taken together, illustrate a particular standard. Eventually, we want to have sets of tasks for each standard that:

• Illuminate the central meaning of the standard and show connections with other standards,
• Clarify what is familiar about the standard and what is new with the Common Core,
• Include both teaching and assessment tasks, and
• Reflect the full range of difficulty expected.

At the moment we have quite a few standards that only have one or two tasks. For the new contest, we are asking people to help us fill in some of the sets that are not yet complete. People can send a task for any standard that already has at least one task, and in addition to sending a task, we are asking people to explain what “gaps” it helps fill. For example, there is one task that illustrates some of the expectations in A-CED.2 “Create equations in two or more variables to represent relationships between quantities; graph equations on coordinate axes with labels and scales.” However, a task that asks students to graph equations that represent relationships between quantities would help round out the set needed to fully illustrate this standard.

Authors of tasks selected for inclusion in the Illustrative Mathematics task bank will receive $200 per task, which must be emailed by Monday, March 12th, 2012 midnight in your local time zone to illustrativemathematics@gmail.com with subject line “Submission for Illustrative Mathematics Task Writing Contest Feb 13 – Mar 12, 2012.”

We have also created a permanent page with general information about the Illustrative Mathematics Contest that all who are thinking about submitting a task should check out.

Lastly, we would like to encourage any groups doing PD on the Common Core Standards to consider using this contest as a way to approach thinking about the standards and the depth of understanding that they represent. Tasks are reviewed by other professionals in mathematics education and we work with contributors to refine their submission. Listed below are tasks that have been through the review process and are now available on the Illustrative Mathematics website.

Contest Winners

We are pleased to announce a few of the winners of our earlier contests whose tasks are available at the Illustrative Mathematics website!

Dan Meyer — Doctoral student, Stanford University, California. His task is titled “8.F High School Graduation”.

Travis Lemon — Teacher, American Fork Junior High School, Utah. He has two tasks in development and two posted titled “7.RP Cooking with the Whole Cup” and “8.EE Find the Change.”

James E. Bialasik and Breean Martin–Teachers, Sweet Home CSD, New York. Their task is titled “8.EE Cell Phone Plans.”

We have more winning entries making their way through the review process now and will post them here once they are published.