I bumped into an old friend the other day that I had not seen in over 20 years. In fact, it had been so long since we had last met, that I assumed he had passed on. You can imagine my surprise
and joy at finding him alive and healthy. “He” was an old ditto I used when I first began teaching math.
I asked him what he had been up to and he said, “I’ve changed my name. I used to be called ‘Problem-Solving Ditto’, but now I go by ‘Common Core Aligned Math Task’ and I’m getting all kinds of attention.” It was the week before school started, and our district math chair gave us some materials to help us transition to the Common Core Math Standards. In the packet, I met my old friend. I had known him as a faded ditto who frequently visited my class. Now he was a sharply-dressed page ready to guide students into deeper thinking than they had done in two decades. My first thought was that the mathematical teaching pendulum was swinging back to where it had been in the late ‘80’s, but there is more to it than that. As we transition into the Common Core Math Standards, those of us with graying or balding heads may meet a few old acquaintances. This will be an easier transition for those of us old enough to have taught under a much older framework of problem-solving and explorations of number. But simply unpacking old crates won’t serve us well under the Common Core. The good news is that the content of the mathematics has not changed significantly. That is, math is still math. For example, though there is less emphasis nationally on getting 8th graders to pass algebra, they are still learning about proportion, number systems, geometry, data and statistics, and many of the concepts we were teaching in the past. There will not be a need to go back to school to learn some new math. On the other hand, how the content is tested and consequently how we present it will change significantly. Gone are the scripted lessons of the past that never seemed to match the reality of your students’ questions. Now we have lessons that require us to lead our students with a wider vision of where we have been, where we are, and where we are going. In the past, most states asked teachers to hyper-focus on specific skills and standards and teaching them in isolation. Now we look to integrate concepts so that students will develop connections in their learning. How does algebra relate to the patterns we find in geometry or in statistics? No longer will we be content with students who can do math; now we want them to understand it during the process. In Conceputal and Procedural Knowledge in Mathematics, Hiebert and Lefevre state “When concepts and skills are not connected, students may have a good intuitive feel for mathematics but not solve the problems, or they may generate answers but not understand what they are doing.” We will no longer simply test students to determine if they are proficient with a number two pencil, we want students who can think mathematically and solve problems. Though the tests for Common Core will not be immediately available, we know that they will require students to demonstrate high-order thinking about numbers. Districts are already moving at developing curricula to move in this direction. The new Common Core Standards will not require us to learn a new mathematics we have never seen before, but they will most definitely demand that we teach in new and richer ways. Just ask my old friend, Problem-Solving Ditto. He may look the same, but his new job description is a drastic promotion from his old role.
I asked him what he had been up to and he said, “I’ve changed my name. I used to be called ‘Problem-Solving Ditto’, but now I go by ‘Common Core Aligned Math Task’ and I’m getting all kinds of attention.” It was the week before school started, and our district math chair gave us some materials to help us transition to the Common Core Math Standards. In the packet, I met my old friend. I had known him as a faded ditto who frequently visited my class. Now he was a sharply-dressed page ready to guide students into deeper thinking than they had done in two decades. My first thought was that the mathematical teaching pendulum was swinging back to where it had been in the late ‘80’s, but there is more to it than that. As we transition into the Common Core Math Standards, those of us with graying or balding heads may meet a few old acquaintances. This will be an easier transition for those of us old enough to have taught under a much older framework of problem-solving and explorations of number. But simply unpacking old crates won’t serve us well under the Common Core. The good news is that the content of the mathematics has not changed significantly. That is, math is still math. For example, though there is less emphasis nationally on getting 8th graders to pass algebra, they are still learning about proportion, number systems, geometry, data and statistics, and many of the concepts we were teaching in the past. There will not be a need to go back to school to learn some new math. On the other hand, how the content is tested and consequently how we present it will change significantly. Gone are the scripted lessons of the past that never seemed to match the reality of your students’ questions. Now we have lessons that require us to lead our students with a wider vision of where we have been, where we are, and where we are going. In the past, most states asked teachers to hyper-focus on specific skills and standards and teaching them in isolation. Now we look to integrate concepts so that students will develop connections in their learning. How does algebra relate to the patterns we find in geometry or in statistics? No longer will we be content with students who can do math; now we want them to understand it during the process. In Conceputal and Procedural Knowledge in Mathematics, Hiebert and Lefevre state “When concepts and skills are not connected, students may have a good intuitive feel for mathematics but not solve the problems, or they may generate answers but not understand what they are doing.” We will no longer simply test students to determine if they are proficient with a number two pencil, we want students who can think mathematically and solve problems. Though the tests for Common Core will not be immediately available, we know that they will require students to demonstrate high-order thinking about numbers. Districts are already moving at developing curricula to move in this direction. The new Common Core Standards will not require us to learn a new mathematics we have never seen before, but they will most definitely demand that we teach in new and richer ways. Just ask my old friend, Problem-Solving Ditto. He may look the same, but his new job description is a drastic promotion from his old role.
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