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Attending to the Standards for Mathematical Practice

When working with the Common Core we tend to only focus on the piece that explains the content that needs to be taught. This is the part of the Core that most of us do very well already. The content partition (for most) is not vastly different that what you may have already been doing in the classroom, as teachers naturally know how to teach a specific standard and assess accordingly. However, the Common Core does not ask teachers to solely focus on the content standards. We found that for us, the teaching shift is more the focus on the mathematical practice standards. They seem to be more important than the content standards and can really drive your instruction. For those that are not familiar with what they are or its purpose… “The Standards for Mathematical Practice describe varieties of expertise that mathematics educators at all levels should seek to develop in their students” (http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Practice).  There are 8 Standards for Mathematical Practice, which range from Reason abstractly and quantitatively to Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Here is a 4-minute video on the importance of these practices. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1rxkW8ucAI

Another useful tool we found is corechallenge.org. This site is a melting pot of Common Core resources. Below is the link specifically to the page about our Math Practices.

http://www.corechallenge.org/Resources/Supporting_the_Math_Practices

Our suggestion is to embrace these practices, take the time to understand them and rather than drilling the steps to solving a math problem, allow your students a bit more time to ask questions, discover the why, and give them the room to challenge your thinking as well as their own.

Teaching with the Common Core in Mind ~ The Work Wives