{"id":20361,"date":"2023-09-21T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nwea.org\/blog\/?p=20361"},"modified":"2024-07-16T10:31:33","modified_gmt":"2024-07-16T17:31:33","slug":"free-resources-for-bringing-the-common-core-standards-for-mathematical-practice-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nwea.org\/blog\/2023\/free-resources-for-bringing-the-common-core-standards-for-mathematical-practice-to-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Free resources for bringing the Common Core standards for mathematical practice to life"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Getting comfortable with the Common Core standards for mathematical practice can make a big difference in your classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine your curriculum as a cross-country road trip: sights to see, viewpoints to photograph, restaurants to try. These are the content standards, the \u201cwhat\u201d for students to learn. You (and your curriculum) have planned everything out as little dots across a map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, picture the \u201chow\u201d of all the little details: What vehicle you\u2019re taking. The tunes playing. The car snacks. Route A or B.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201chow\u201d matters. I am not going to care about a beautiful overlook if I\u2019m hangry and I need a rest stop! Our students are exactly the same. It matters how we invite them to interact with the what. Are there times we have lost the joy in our mathematical road trips because we forgot that the journey is as important as the destination?Probably. I invite you to focus on that joy a bit more this year. Our newly released quick reference guide<\/a> and lesson planning tool<\/a> can help you on your journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CCSS standards for mathematical practice: A reminder<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We teachers are familiar with our content standards. We know if our students need to be able to calculate the area of a circle or demonstrate the mean. However, that \u201cneed to be able to\u201d holds hands with a \u201chow they are able to.\u201d Can their skill be repeated beyond tomorrow\u2019s test? How deep does that knowledge go?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This emphasis for thinking deeply rather than just answering correctly is what my colleague Ted Coe<\/a> refers to as \u201chabits of mind\u201d that lead to \u201cways of thinking rather than ways of doing.\u201d<\/a> Luckily, we have the standards for mathematical practice<\/a> to help students access all the wonders of mathematics by helping them sense-make, represent, explain, and talk about mathematics. Here they are, in case it\u2019s been a while since you looked at them all together:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Model with mathematics.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Use appropriate tools strategically.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Attend to precision.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. Look for and make use of structure.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    I\u2019ll be honest. The eight standards sometimes sound like math salad. How can you find an answer without \u201cattending to precision?\u201d When are students ever not \u201cmaking sense of and persevering with problems?\u201d At times, the standards can feel like a cross between \u201cHuh?\u201d and \u201cDuh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The standards, simplified<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Karen Fuson<\/a>, math educator, CCSS author, and all-around math advocate, recently suggested a recategorization of the standards to help teachers group them so they can better focus on four different skills:<\/p>\n\n\n\n