Hello Common Core Enthusiasts!  My name is Ellen Whitesides and I am working for Bill McCallum at the Institute for Mathematics and Education (IM&E) at University of Arizona on all of our projects related to the Common Core.  You can check out our ongoing projects here:

http://ime.math.arizona.edu/commoncore/

IM&E is working as a part of a collaboration between NCTM, NCSM, ASSM, AMTE, CBMS, Achieve, AFT, IAS/PCMI, MfA, NAGB, and NEA to produce a day long professional development on the Common Core. The effort is authored by teachers across the country, will be field tested by teachers, and ultimately facilitated by teachers with teachers as the targeted audience. The toolkit will have activities hitting four main goals; to see structure in the standards, to understand the Standards of Mathematical Practice, to align tasks to the standards, and to understand the language used in the standards. Activities will be developed for Elementary, Middle School, and High School teachers. As we develop tools and activities for this project we will be posting them here in the Tools section of the blog so check back soon for PD tools to further explain the Common Core in Mathematics.  The toolkit should be ready for initial pilot testing this summer so stay tuned if your school or district might be interested in participating as a beta testing site for activities designed for the Toolkit.