Thanks to everyone who took time to submit tasks to our last contest! We would like to announce the second round of our Standards Task Writing Contest beginning Monday, January 2nd, 2012. We have two themes this week; the first stems from our first contest’s theme of Functions. We had several strong tasks submitted for some of the 7-8 function standards (we’ll announce the winners when their tasks are published)  and would like to continue the theme with the following high school standards:

• F.IF.4
• F.IF.5
• F.IF.6

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At the Illustrative Mathematics Project, we have been planning to invite people to submit tasks for a “standard of the week.” We decided to make it a bit more interesting, and would like to announce the first round of our Standards Task Writing Contest beginning Tuesday, December 13^th, 2011. The theme for this week is the K-8 functions stream (see pp 21-23 in “Examples of Structure in the Common Core State Standards’ Standards for Mathematical Content” by Jason Zimba). Some of the standards in this stream already have illustrations (see 6.RP.3, 7.RP.2, 7.RP.3, 8.EE.5) but most do not. People are invited to submit tasks for these standards:

• 3.OA.9
• 4.OA.5
• 5.OA.3
• 6.EE.9
• 7.RP.1
• 8.F.4

Authors of tasks selected for inclusion in the Illustrative Mathematics task bank will receive $200 per task (not per author, sorry!) and must be emailed by Monday, December 19^th midnight in your local time zone to illustrativemathematics@gmail.com with subject line “Submission for Illustrative Mathematics Task Writing Contest Dec 12 – Dec 19, 2011.” If your task is accepted, we will notify you the week following the deadline. We may ask you to work with us to revise the task before we accept it.  People may submit multiple tasks. Any questions about the contest should be sent to the same email address with subject line “Question about Illustrative Mathematics Task Writing Contest Dec 12 – Dec 19, 2011.”

How it Should Look

All task submissions must include at least one complete solution. We will give extra consideration to tasks written by pairs or teams of people, tasks that have natural connections to other tasks related to this stream, and tasks with insightful commentary. Please submit tasks in word format or LaTeX, along with a pdf if possible. Here is a word_template. 

Things You Should Know Before Submitting

Writing a great task is an art, and tasks often benefit from multiple revisions. It would be helpful to read some of the tasks that have already been accepted at http://illustrativemathematics.org. To learn more about what makes a good mathematical task, read this article by Kristin Umland.

We look forward to reading your tasks!

It’s a long time since I posted something, but today I have some exciting news. Some of you may have noticed that about a week ago the Illustrative Mathematics Project went live with the next version of its website (illustrativemathematics.org). The site has a set of tasks for one standard at each K–8 grade level. More tasks will be appearing over the coming weeks.

Eventually the sets of tasks will include elaborated teaching tasks with detailed information about using them for instructional purposes, rubrics, and student work. Such a fully developed set of tasks will be what we call a Complete Illustration of the standard. Right now we are trying to build up our collection of Initial Illustrations of standards, which will have the following characteristics:

• A minimum of 4 tasks (although typically 5-6 or more depending on the standard).
• Most will be more like assessment tasks or brief teaching tasks. At least one will be the kernel of an instructional task that can eventually be more fully developed and elaborated with the help of teachers using it in classrooms.
• The tasks in the set will vary in difficulty. Some but not all will be scaffolded.
• A balance in computational/algorithmic and conceptual tasks.
• An appropriate number of contextual problems for the standard.
• Most of the tasks will illuminate the “center of mass” of the standard, and a few will light up the periphery.
• At least one task will bridge in some way to another standard, ideally across domains or grade levels.

The new site also allows users to register. This is not necessary to see the tasks, but if you register you will be eligible for news bulletins and various opportunities for involvement in the project that will arise over the next few months.

Go to illustrativemathematics.org to see the new goodies. (This is still a beta site, and you may encounter slowness or other problems from time to time.)

I’m pleased to announce the launch of illustrativemathematics.org, site of Illustrative Mathematics. It provides a flexible display of the standards, with the hierarchy expanding or collapsing at a click, and the K–8 standards viewable both by grade level and by domain. Over the next few months we will be adding illustrative tasks and problems linked to the standards.

Illustrative Mathematics had its advisory board meeting a couple of weeks ago at the Institute for Mathematics & Education at the University of Arizona. The board includes representatives from the national mathematics and teacher organizations, from state departments of education, and from the two federally funded assessment consortia. The board developed a protocol for reviewing tasks and problems, and we are now gearing up to process the first batch of illustrative tasks. We hope to have a prototype website displaying the standards in a flexible way online in a couple of weeks.

As we prepare for the first advisory board meeting of Illustrative Mathematics later this month, I have been looking around the web for sources of tasks and problems. Inside Mathematics is aligning its tools with the Standards. Click on Tools for Teachers, then browse the grade levels to see tasks from the Mathematics Assessment Resource Service (MARS) at the Shell Centre. You can see other sample MARS tasks here. I’d be interested in people’s thoughts about these.

This project, described in more detail here, will collect sample tasks and problems for the Common Core State Standards in mathematics. At the moment it is in the phase of setting up a nationally representative advisory board, and developing a website for the display of the standards and sample tasks.