Five Actions Math Teachers Can Take to Move Towards A Common Core Classroom
The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS-M) encompass several components. To fully comprehend the instructional implications of implementing the CCSS-M, mathematics teachers must sort through and understand the content standards, the Standards for Mathematical Practice, and the Instructional Shifts, which are: focus, coherence and rigor. While it is important for teachers to understand the details of each of these components, it is equally important to consider these pieces as a whole and reflect on what immediate actions can be taken to move towards teaching to the heart of the CCSS-M. The standards consistently emphasize the following five actions that teachers can do to move towards a common core classroom.
Encourage Productive Discourse
One of the eight Standards for Mathematical Practice states that mathematically proficient students will construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. The foundation of being able to construct mathematical arguments requires that students be comfortable speaking about mathematics and listening to others speak about mathematics. With the transition to Common Core, it is critically important that teachers provide opportunities for students to engage in rich conversations centered on rigorous mathematical concepts.
Provide Experiences Rather Than Telling
The Common Core State Standards emphasize the importance of student discovery. Content knowledge is important; students should also consistently be provided with opportunities to explore content and invent algorithms, with teacher guidance. It is important that teachers do not attempt to simply drill and kill processes and procedures. Students must be provided with tasks that allow them to explore and discover mathematics.
Writing in mathematics is unarguably one of the most effective strategies that teachers can use to gauge student understanding. Challenging students to write about mathematics will allow them to process their discoveries and learnings and will teach them how to structure their thoughts and ideas.Writing also sets a foundation for students to model with mathematics using visuals, graphs, and representations that they have created. When writing in the mathematics classroom, students should be expect to adhere to the same level of attention to mechanics and grammar as they would in an English Language Arts course. Doing so will promote transference of skills, in this instance writing skills, to the subject of mathematics.
The CCSS-M require that students be able to transfer the application of skills and concepts to other concepts in mathematics, other content areas, and real world examples. Teachers can assist with the transference of skills by teaching mathematics in context instead of with naked numbers. It is overwhelming agreed that students must fluently understand basic facts. These facts are too frequently taught as 1+2=3 when they could instead be taught as 1 apple plus two bananas equals three pieces of fruit. Context should be given to every concept in math and numerals should be used as adjectives to describe the nouns that they represent.
Manipulatives are tools that teachers of mathematics can and should use to teach and reinforce students' understanding of mathematical concepts. The instructional shift of Rigor encompasses conceptual understanding, procedural fluency,and application with equal intensity. The idea of building conceptual understanding should begin with understand of the concept or big idea about mathematics, which can be achieved using manipulatives to explore a rigorous task. Using manipulatives also gives students the experiences that they need to know which tools they will need to solve other problems and tasks in mathematics.
