In addition to the efforts mentioned here and here, COMAP is holding a three-day invitational conference in Washington, DC from April 29–May 1, funded by the National Science Foundation. According to the PI Sol Garfunkel, this working meeting will bring together about 70 representatives from mathematics education practitioner organizations, the two assessment consortia, state and national education policy groups, and major instructional materials development teams. The purpose is to build a productive dialogue between the key players in implementation of the Common Core State Standards. The conference will draw on the expertise of mathematics educators with responsibilities close to the everyday work of schools and specialists in curriculum materials development in order to inform the development of high quality assessments.
Update on Illustrative Mathematics
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.
Another project for professional development on the Standards
In addition to the workshop I mentioned here, a new NSF funded-project will be developing recommendations for professional development. In the words of the PIs, Karen Marrongelle, Peg Smith, and Paola Sztajn:
“Articulating Research Ideas that Support the Implementation of the Professional Development Needed for Making the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics Reality for K-12 Teachers is a newly funded NSF project that will coordinate knowledge from different fields to develop recommendations for the design, implementation, and assessment of large scale professional development systems consistent with the mathematics of the CCSS. Research results from diverse perspectives (e.g, mathematics education, organizational theory, professional development) will be articulated into a coherent framework and a set of recommendations for successful large-scale, system-level implementation of mathematics professional development initiatives. The recommendations will be disseminated through the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Additionally, the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators, the Mathematical Association of America, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics, and the Association of State Supervisors of Mathematics are partners in this effort.”
Structuring the mathematical practices
In the progressions project we’ve been discussing how best to represent the standards for mathematical practice. The practices are signposted throughout the documents, but we’ve also been thinking about how to provide some structure for the practice standards that will help people avoid fruitless tagging exercises in their efforts to integrate the practice standards into the content standards. If you think about it long enough you can associate just about any practice standard with any content standard, but this sort of matrix thinking can lead to a dilution of the force of the practice standards—if you try to do everything all the time, you end up doing nothing. This diagram is an attempt to provide some higher order structure to the practice standards, just as the clusters and domains provide higher order structure to the content standards.
Conference on professional development around the Common Core, April 1–3
The Institute for Mathematics and Education is having a conference on professional development for the mathematics standards, April 1–3, in Tucson. Space is limited, but if you are interested, send an email to ime@math.arizona.edu.
Homework assignment for higher education and high school faculty
Here is an exercise I just gave to the mixed higher education/high school teams at the PARCC meeting. Thought it might be fun for everybody:
1. Read the standards, noting domains, clusters that are particularly high priority for college and career readiness (don’t include individual standards unless you absolutely must).
2. Select the most important domain or cluster at each of the grades 6-8 and themes in high school (or just some of the grades and themes if you don’t have time for all).
3. [Optional] For each one pick one or two practices that are particularly salient, and explain how it is exemplified.
4. Rule: Give higher priority to things that are harder to fix [if students come to college not having them], not things that you hate to have to fix but that are easier.
5. Write a one page common agreement on priorities that both higher education and high school (1) accept as important (2) clearly understand.
[Post edited for clarification, 2/19/11]
Hyperlinked version of the mathematics standards
As part of our work with Illustrative Mathematics we have put the standards into TeX format in a database. A byproduct of this is a hyperlinked version of the Standards. You can navigate grade levels by clicking links on the bottom of each page, and within a grade level by clicking domain headings in the overview. There are few other goodies as well: for example, references to the tables link to them. If people find it useful I could add links to relevant glossary definitions as well, when I have the time.
Curriculum analysis tools for the mathematics Standards
Bill Bush is leading a project to develop three tools that will help teachers and school administrators analyze curriculum materials as they implement the Standards. One looks at the treatment of key content areas in each of four grade bands (K–2, 3–5, 6–8, 9–12); one analyzes how well the standards for mathematical practice are integrated into the materials; and one analyzes pedagogical aspects of the materials. The project is funded by the Brookhill Foundation and Texas Instruments, and plans to release the tools in June 2011.
MARS tasks
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.
Ed Silver’s comments on Common Core at AMTE
I can say that I had nothing to do with the Common Core standards. (Not bitter.)
Big question: what is going to be possible to do this time that it wasn’t possible to do before?
There are echoes of the new math in some of what is going on now, and there are lessons to be learned from more recent reform efforts.
Project at Michigan that is focusing on coherence across grade levels. The New Math had its take on coherence; NCTM Curriculum and Evaluation Standards, PSSM, and Focal Points all had their take. When I was here in California in the 1980s, California had a progressive framework, followed in the 90s by a framework which many saw as a U-turn. Teachers saw a radical shift. In the 10 years I’ve been at Michigan, teachers have had three different sets of standards. Some teachers are numb to it.
On the content side, the big thing that Common Core brings is understanding to the expectations. Banned in Michigan and many other states, because of assessment. I’m not sure that 50 years after the New Math we are any closer to figuring out how to assess understanding. We also have the standards for mathematical practice, but still not in the content. (Good to call them standards.)
To the extent that the assessment can be seen as driving attention to the practice standards, the conversations with teachers will be a lot easier. Not sure that the outline of content is any better than any other we have had. New Math and PSSM had unintended consequences (back to basics, math wars respectively).
The important issue is scalability. Teacher education is a state driven enterprise. Now that everybody is adopting the same set of standards. That allows for collaboration across institutions and across state lines. That’s a very exciting project. AMTE can be at the forefront of doing that work.