Author: Bill McCallum

Illustrative Mathematics redesign and milestones

/ Bill McCallum / 8 Comments

Some of you may have noticed this already, but we have just gone live with a major redesign of the Illustrative Mathematics website. Take a look and let us know what you think. In addition to the new look, we have reached a milestone of 400 illustrative tasks. The new comment feature is attracting interest as well. And the FAQ section will be kept up to date with answers to all your burning questions.

I know somebody is going to ask about printing tasks. We don’t have that yet, but are working on it!

Arranging the high school standards into courses

/ Bill McCallum / 59 Comments

Here is a suggested arrangement of the high school standards into courses, developed with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Pearson Foundation, by a group of people including Patrick Callahan and Brad Findell. I haven’t looked at it closely, but it seems to be a solid effort by people familiar with the standards, so I put it up for comment and discussion. There are five files: the first four are graphic displays of the arrangement of the standards into both traditional and integrated sequences, with the standards referred to by their codes. The fifth is a description of the arrangement with the text of the standards and commentary.

9_11 Scope and Sequence_traditional1

9_11 Scope and Sequence_traditional2

9_11 Scope and Sequence_integrated1

9_11 Scope and Sequence_integrated2

High School Units-All-03feb12

New features on the Illustrative Mathematics website

/ Bill McCallum / 3 Comments

Our master geeks have been working day and night the last few weeks to bring you some improvements to illustrativemathematics.org. A lot of these improvements are behind-the-scenes, but there are two that are particularly worth mentioning:

1. Registered users can rate tasks by voting them up or down.
2. Registered users can comment on tasks.

You can edit and delete your comments, although it will leave a placeholder note that you deleted your comment in case someone replies to your comment (so their comment won’t be deleted also).

We have more improvements in store, and illustrations are being added every day, so keep checking in.

The Structure is the Standards

/ Bill McCallum / 48 Comments

Phil Daro, Bill McCallum, Jason Zimba

A Grecian urn

You have just purchased an expensive Grecian urn and asked the dealer to ship it to your house. He picks up a hammer, shatters it into pieces, and explains that he will send one piece a day in an envelope for the next year. You object; he says “don’t worry, I’ll make sure that you get every single piece, and the markings are clear, so you’ll be able to glue them all back together. I’ve got it covered.” Absurd, no? But this is the way many school systems require teachers to deliver mathematics to their students; one piece (i.e. one standard) at a time. They promise their customers (the taxpayers) that by the end of the year they will have “covered” the standards.

Continue reading →

New initiative on implementing the standards, achievethecore.org

/ Bill McCallum / 2 Comments

Student Achievement Partners has launched a major new initiative to help with implementation of the Common Core State Standards in both Mathematics and English Language Arts. Their website, achievethecore.org, already has some good resources, and no doubt will grow. Student Achievement Partners is a non-profit whose founding partners are David Coleman and Sue Pimentel, two of the lead writers for ELA, and Jason Zimba, one of the lead writers for Mathematics. The other two lead writers for Mathematics, myself and Phil Daro, are advisors for the project.

Two documents with recommendations for professional development

/ Bill McCallum / 2 Comments

First, here is the final report from the Gearing Up conference at the Institute for Mathematics & Education held in April, 2011. It is very little changed from the draft that I put up a while ago: 2011_12_06_Gearing_Up.

Second, here is a report from a meeting organized by Paola Sztajn, Karen Marrongelle, and Peg Smith: http://www.nctm.org/uploadedFiles/Math_Standards/Summary_PD_CCSSMath.pdf