Many of us want to judge and hate on what we refer to as “Common Core Math.” However, with my experience in education (over 10 years) I haven’t seen so many students engaged and interactive in math as I have in the last couple of years. Just today I walked 5 classrooms and within each of those classrooms, students where either, collaborating and problem solving with each other, out of their desks measuring on another, watching a digital Kahn Video to make connections with X-Gamers and angles, students partitioning shapes together on a white board and so much more. Who could argue that this is great, interactive instruction? Sure this “Common Core Math” stuff is hard, but isn’t that what good instruction and learning is? Without a little rigor and students thinking, how could learning happen? Prior to this “Common Core Math” stuff, students would sit in a classroom, work quietly in their textbooks on problems 1-34 all by themselves, BORING! I remember this when I was a student and guess what happened, I went to algebra in high school and had no concept of numbers, I couldn’t visualize numbers I was a “computer” only, I could compute numbers very well but didn’t understand what numbers meant. Even as an adult I have a hard time visualizing numbers. I think the best experience I had in understanding and seeing the patterns of numbers was when I was using numbers regularly, as a blackjack dealer. I choose career paths where I could avoid mathematics because of this deficiency I had with numbers. This closed a lot of doors for me. My statistics class in college was a daily struggle; I had no idea how to see numbers in our everyday world.
I am not here to say “Common Core Math” is perfect, nothing ever is, but it is a step in the right direction. Kids are thinking (shoot even us parents are thinking as we help them with this crazy homework), they are engaged and understanding concepts of numbers better. Students are talking about numbers, looking at numbers in our everyday world, seeing how they affect them regularly, isn’t this what we want for our kids?
How about we stop judging the book by its cover, give this “Common Core Math” some time, be patient and see the outcomes before passing judgment. I think we all might be a little surprised and impressed with what our students can do 5 years from now. I am only so lucky to be able to see it in the making. #commoncoremath #lusded #penrynrocks #penrynprincipal
If you like this blog on #commoncoremath check out this article and blog:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/03/07/about-that-common-core-math-problem-making-the-rounds-on-facebook/
http://neatoday.org/2013/05/10/six-ways-the-common-core-is-good-for-students-2/
I am not here to say “Common Core Math” is perfect, nothing ever is, but it is a step in the right direction. Kids are thinking (shoot even us parents are thinking as we help them with this crazy homework), they are engaged and understanding concepts of numbers better. Students are talking about numbers, looking at numbers in our everyday world, seeing how they affect them regularly, isn’t this what we want for our kids?
How about we stop judging the book by its cover, give this “Common Core Math” some time, be patient and see the outcomes before passing judgment. I think we all might be a little surprised and impressed with what our students can do 5 years from now. I am only so lucky to be able to see it in the making. #commoncoremath #lusded #penrynrocks #penrynprincipal
If you like this blog on #commoncoremath check out this article and blog:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/03/07/about-that-common-core-math-problem-making-the-rounds-on-facebook/
http://neatoday.org/2013/05/10/six-ways-the-common-core-is-good-for-students-2/