Standards taught in order?

[Anonymous]

Hi Bill,

We’ve heard that the Common Core State Standards  have to be taught in order? Is that true? For instance, OAT and then the NBT standards all in order?

Thanks for any insights.

[Bill McCallum]

No, this is not true. In fact, the standards themselves explicitly contradict this. Page 5 of the standards says:

These Standards do not dictate curriculum or teaching methods. For example, just because topic A appears before topic B in the standards for a given grade, it does not necessarily mean that topic A must be taught before topic B. A teacher might prefer to teach topic B before topic A, or might choose to highlight connections by teaching topic A and topic B at the same time. Or, a teacher might prefer to teach a topic of his or her own choosing that leads, as a byproduct, to students reaching the standards for topics A and B.

And in particular it would not make sense to teach OA and NBT separately, since there are many close connections between those two domains. It would make more sense to intertwine them in the curriculum.

[cthomson]

What recommendations do you have for teachers who are trying to formulate a sequence for teaching the standards at their respective grade levels? How might they tackle the process?

[Bill McCallum]

Stay tuned … Illustrative Mathematics is working this, with some interesting partners.

[Author]

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