Teaching New Academic Standards Proposed By Creswell ( 2015 )

This paper will demonstrate the pre-service teachers’ understanding of mathematical practices as part of the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics. It will address two specific standards for Mathematical Practices, describing the essence of both and providing a description of how teachers facilitate these practices and how students are engaged in the practices.

The Common Core education standards were developed by the U.S. Department of Education in 2009, with intentions of creating a more rigorous, concerted program to improve student’s math and literacy skills. Due to poor execution, teachers were left unprepared and lacking resources to teach the new curriculum to their unique students. Emphasis on standardized tests rather than learning necessary tools for the adult world leaves students unprepared for college. By interfering with developmentally appropriate curriculums set by classroom professionals, national education standards fail to reflect every students’ needs and, therefore, should not be determined by the federal government.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) was first implemented in 2010, nine years after I graduated from high school. Although I wasn’t personally affected by the new academic standards, it has a direct impact on the current and future generation of leaders, innovators, and world changers including my future children. The initial purpose of the Common Core Standards is to set high-quality learning goals designed to prepare students to be college and career ready. Given the current controversies surrounding CCSS, studies have shown that although the intent was to benefit students in the long-run it may actually be hindering their mathematical and reading skills. To further explore the arguments behind the Common Core initiative, I will

In addition, these national standards have been said to decline creativity. And most importantly not completing what is said will be accomplished by implementing this into American Education, which is preparing students for stem-fields and university mathematics. A current study shows less than half of Americans (49 percent) and only 40 percent of teachers now say they support Common Core State Standards (CCSS).  Raising the question as to why students are still being thought this in American

The new Common Core State Standards for Mathematics bring a new opportunity to the classrooms of the United States that many people view as a controversial. According to the NCTM (2013) “The Common Core State Standards offer a foundation for the development of more rigorous, focused, and coherent mathematics curricula, instruction, and assessments that promote conceptual understanding and reasoning as well as skill fluency” (par. 1). While some people believe that the Common Core State Standards may hinder progress in the classroom for many reasons including too much government control, teaching to the test, an excessive focus on language arts and math, and wasted resources, others agree with the NCTM statement about that claims the standards help increase conceptual understanding, reasoning, and skill fluency.

At New Bern High School, Charlie Bernthal, a freshman, sits in a class room instructed by Common Core standards. It will take one of Charlie’s teachers six minutes to demonstrate the various methods to complete a simple multiplication problem, such as 63 x 24. Students are taught to use arrays, lattice, partial product methods, and eventually the traditional U.S. customary method. The Common Core standards happen to be a big discussion point during this year’s election. People have many strong opinions when it comes to the Common Core State Standards, but researchers and institutions express reasons why teachers and schools should not use Common Core to instruct America’s youth. Schools and teachers should not teach by Common Core standards because these standards are detrimental to our children.

“Common Core State Standards Initiative” is a result of the “Standards and Accountability Movement” which began in the 1990s in the United States. This particular branch of education reforms was geared towards expectations of learning at each grade level. The Standards and Accountability Movement not only brought attention on what students were expected to learn, but on teachers as well – focusing on how teachers were to implement lessons and able to teach for student achievement which would be measured in

If there is one thing that all American’s can agree on it is that the education provided for our youth serves as the foundation for the continuation and prosperity of our nation’s future. On the smaller scale, the students that live and learn here in the state of California will become our congressmen, doctors, policemen; the future of our great state. The adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) was necessary for improving the education policies in place for the youth in California. For one, it replaced the failing academic system, the No Child Left Behind Act. Second, the CCSS drives students to build deeper conceptual understandings of course material and foster their critical-thinking and analytical skills. Next, the CCSS levels

“Students in the United States have scored far below other countries on international assessments” (Dana, Burns, & Wolkenhauer pg.4). The Common Core State Standards will help students in the United States achieve in their assessments and establish a clear, consistent guidelines for what every student should understand and be capable of accomplishing in math and English language arts. As stated in the book, “developing, implementing, assessing, and redeveloping, reimplementing, and reassessing in their own set of state standards” (Dana, Burns, & Wolkenhauer, pg.4). Working at an elementary school every teacher that I work with implements the Common Core State Standards every day. I love how my kindergarten teachers implement CCSS when doing English language arts because they talk about different topics and texts, and the students are participating in collaborative conversations with the other students in the

In 2010 majority of the states in the U.S. adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). These new standards were built on the best of high-quality math standards from states across the country. They also draw on the most important international models for mathematical practice, as well as research and input from numerous sources, including state departments of education, scholars, assessment developers, professional organizations, educators, parents and students, and members of the public. The CCSS provide clarity and specificity rather than broad general statements. The CCSS stress conceptual understanding of key ideas, but also by continually returning to organizing principles such as place value and the laws of arithmetic to structure

Common Core Stat Standards (CCSS) is an interesting topic of discussion and debate because it is such a charged topic. CCSS are a set of standards that are set equally amongst all states, as opposed to states creating their own standards, with significant monetary benefits for states that accept and exceed standards set by CCSS. This topic in particular is interesting because of how politically charged it is. Some individuals think of it as a big-government takeover of what should be handled at a local level, or at the very highest, state level. These standards are important to nearly every aspect of education: teachers, school administration, students, parents, lawmakers, and even textbook and test authors. My treatment of the CCSS standards is fair, however, I willingly admit that I do take a few punches at those who willingly misinterpret the very excellent goals of CCSS.

The standards are divided into two sets, mathematical practice, and mathematical content. The mathematical practice standards describe ways that students should engage with mathematics content as they grow in maturity from kindergarten through high school. The mathematical content standards stress a balance between procedural skill and conceptual understanding (IDEA Partnership, 2010). Students will learn math skills and use them while they are being applied to real-world mathematical problems. A teacher can assess a student on their understanding of the standards by having them explain the process they used to solve the problem, along with asking what rule was used (if any) to solve the problem. The overall goal of the math standards is to build a foundation of skills and fluency while having students understand the underlying concepts of the math

A Year in the Life of an Elementary School: One School's Experiences in Meeting New Mathematics Standards

Many educators will argue what makes an effective teacher and how that correlates with the function of the classroom. When we talked about how to be an effective teacher we discussed three components, teaching through problem-solving and selecting appropriate tasks, creating appropriate environments and using appropriate interventions. In my field experience, I was able to observe these three effective mathematics teaching components and understand how they apply to the classroom. After leaning about these components, I was then able to use them in my personal experience and see how they

The purpose of the exploratory interviews was to solicit the names of individuals involved with providing PD in the region. We used this information to create an initial list of names that formed the seeds of the snowball. We defined three criteria for inclusion in the sample: (1) participants had helped plan or provide mathematics professional development for teachers; (2) the PD occurred in one of the four counties in the region; and (3) the PD occurred within the past year. Our initial seed list consisted of the names of 23 providers and their home organizations. With this list, we began the main part of the snowball sample.