Effective Instructional Strategies to Ensure Fifth Grade Mathematics Readiness

With the added pressure to do well in school, standardized testing becomes a means to added stress, anxiety and further complicates the pressure to succeed in a student’s life. Rather than a focus on learning and understanding, school has become a massive rope skill memorization test designed to have students memorize subjects to pass the test, and forget the material the next minute for the next test. When asked to speak about standardized testing, education chairman, Larry Taylor, said “It’s heart-wrenching, and it’s also insanity when you see the level of achievement these kids are already doing and yet they can’t even pass this test.” (Smith). The utilization of standardized testing further exemplifies and validates the idea that no matter how hard or long you work in school, your work will never be worth the few answers you write for the

To many students standardized testing has become another part of schooling that is dreaded. Standardized testing has been a part of school since the nineteen-thirties; in those days it was used as a way to measure students that had special needs. Since the time that standardized test have been in American schools there has been many programs that have placed an importance on the idea of standardized testing such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Evans 1). Over the years the importance of standardized testing has increased tremendously and so has the stakes, not only for teachers but also students. All states in the United States of America have state test in order to measure how much students learn, and help tell how well the

Students dread the time of the year when they stop with their course material and begin to prepare for test. Everyone is in agreement that some type of revolution is needed when it comes to education; eliminating standardized test will aid the reform. The need for standardized testing has proven to be ineffective and outdated; some leading educationalist also believe this because the tests do not measure a student’s true potential. This will save money, stop labeling, and alleviate stress in students and teachers.

The Common Core has been developed as a nationwide measurement for student progress. Officially launched in 2009 as a federal funding bill, the standards identify skills that every student residing in the United States should master in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics from kindergarten through 12th grade (Gewertz, 2015). The Common Core itself is not a curriculum, however, it identifies rigorous objectives that must be met by a school’s curriculum. The purpose is to initiate a deeper focus on developmental learning by using interdisciplinary instruction. This redefines the way that students learn because their progress is no longer assessed on the outcome of their performance, but by the process that has allowed them to reach the

[As a result of the step by step direction in the reengagement lesson, I want students to be able fully grasp the concept of addition; and how the knowledge of addition can be used to provide answers to expressions that require the decomposition of numbers totaling 8, 9, 10. The state standard that I am addressing in this reengagement lesson is 1.OA.1 Common Core State standards; use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together,

During the Foundation Phase, children develop their skills, knowledge and understanding of mathematics through oral, practical and play activities. In our setting children`s mathematical development is supported by different activities. Children are encouraged to develop their understanding of measurement units, investigate the properties of shapes and develop early ideas of reasoning and basic mathematical procedures through practical opportunities. These opportunities include cooking, exploring and counting activities.

This program is appropriate in a diverse, 4th grade general education classroom. The modules are made up of “Topics” and “Lessons” that are aligned to Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Each module provides the foundational standards needed for the lessons (i.e. CCSS from the previous grade), as well as the focus grade level standards. The first module introduces concepts which are then spiraled within the next module’s focus. While the modules are thematic and based on each mathematics domain (base ten numbers, geometry, fractions, data, algebraic thinking), some standards are seen across topics and lessons. Each lesson has allocated time to four major components: fluency practice, concept development, application problems, and student debrief.

Second-grade students will need to be able to solve problems that involve the addition and subtraction operations. Just about each of the major clusters in the Focus Document works with addition and subtraction. This informs me that when teaching, I will need to provide the students with a wide variety of math that will help students become successful in the addition and subtraction operations so students will be successful when they reach third-grade. The Focus Document also informs me that I will need to spend some time teaching students about working with time and money. I will also need to be able to help students represent and interpret the data. The Focus Document is a great tool that helps me understand what the students should be learning in the math class. This document also informs me on the information that students need to know before reaching the next grade level. If I am observing students in second grade that have meet the require fluencies for second grade, then I know that these students will more than likely be successful by the time third grade arrives.

When many people think of elementary education, they think of reading small passages and learning the difference between addition and subtraction in easy, creative ways. Now, with the new Common Core State Standards implemented, today’s kids will have more things to worry about. They are asked more challenging questions and expected to have more rigorous answers. This does not set a steady learning pace for the average child.

Today, it can be observed that society has shifted education drastically from the time schools were constituted, to now. Throughout history, schools have gone from private, where only the elite can attend, to public schools where virtually anyone can attend. One of the factors that goes along with education is standardized testing. Frederick J. Kelly, father of the standardized test, once said, “These tests are too crude to be used, and should be abandoned.” Not only has this shift occurred within education itself, but it has occurred within the testing concepts found within standardized testing so much so that the founder of these tests has chosen to give up on it.

Standardized tests do a wonderful job of supplying the evidence needed to make norm-referenced interpretations of students' knowledge and skills in relationship to those of students nationally. The educational usefulness of those interpretations is considerable. However, the achievement is not the same as learning. When we focus on achievement, we are talking about the test scores and we could miss out on whether or not the students are actually learning.

The lesson also begins with the teacher providing potential tasks for the students, but the student’s response guides the teacher’s questions and direction of teaching, as well as the task being presented to the student. These sessions are supposed to be intensive in order for the students to make progress in their learning. The teachers trained in this program take two graduate-level courses, which are designed to educate them about the math recovery program and instructional techniques and strategies. The sessions with the students are also videotaped so that it can be ensured that these teachers are integrating both assessment and teaching. Another great thing about the program is that there is teaching support that is available for math recovery teachers if they feel like they need

My second step was to focus the next professional learning experience around staff working collaboratively in their grade level teams and departments to have staff familiarize themselves with the Smarter Balance Claims and vocabulary in mathematics, examine scores within departments in order to identify 3-5 high leverage mathematics Smarter Balance skills, investigate their curriculum units in order to embed high leverage skills, claims, content, and vocabulary in instruction. Moreover, they will implement the mathematics Smarter Balance interim block assessments where the assessment aligns naturally in their curriculum and then collaterally by grade level teams and departments analyze the assessment data to modify and enhance their instruction. Consequently, I will lead professional development meetings to create an action plan to embed mathematics Smarter Balance skills within instruction.

Survey results again revealed that teachers were making gains in content knowledge, pedagogy, and perception of their abilities to impact their students’ learning and gains toward being successful with their secondary mathematics requirements. The Organization also conducted pre- and post-tests on the rising ninth graders who participated in Summer II. Student results reflected significant gains in student’s proficiency with middle school mathematics content that is foundational for success in first-year algebra.

The debate on standardized tests and its adequacy in testing a student’s knowledge about a subject has been going on for many years. Tests, in general, has been around for centuries and without them there would not be progress and no gleams of progress. Students ranging from elementary school to high school have experienced standardized testing. Teachers, educators, and parents are also involved in the students’ lives, which revolves around the tests, one way or another. There are many views on standardized test. However, the three most common views are: educators who are for standardized test which benefits students, educators who are at the other extreme of opposing standardized tests, and educators who view tests are a benefit if done in appropriate amounts.