A Common Direction for Georgia Denise A. Spangler University of Georgia

My perspectives  Former elementary school teacher  Mathematics teacher educator for 20 years  School board member for 12 years  Writer and reviewer of Progressions documents (explanations of how mathematical ideas develop over time with suggestions for representations)  Participant in College Board Affinity Network, which brought faculty from Gwinnett County, Georgia Perimeter College, and UGA together to look at college readiness and transitions from Common Core to college.

Georgia’s role in CCSS-M  Georgia was at the table in the very beginning (Governor Purdue and Superintendent Cox).  Jeremy Kilpatrick, Regents Professor of Mathematics Education at UGA, was on the Validation Committee.  Sybilla Beckmann, Meigs Professor of Mathematics at UGA, was on the Mathematics Work Team.  The committees are a veritable Who’s Who of mathematicians and mathematics educators.

Is/Is Not  The Common Core IS a set of standards.  It IS NOT a curriculum.  It does not prescribe teaching methods.  It does not prescribe assessment methods.  As with all standards, the ultimate quality of teaching and learning rests with teachers and those who support them.

Speaking of teachers…  Georgia’s teachers, particularly high school mathematics teachers, have been through the wringer in recent years with all of our curriculum and now assessment changes.  It takes time to see the results of educational reform–usually longer than the 4-year political cycle.  Georgia is making strides in student learning. We need to stay the course.

Is Common Core perfect?  No. There are things I would change. There are things any mathematics educator would change. But we wouldn’t all agree on what they are.  What does a “perfect” curriculum mean?  We need incremental and well-vetted changes to Common Core to  Fill gaps  Smooth transitions from grade to grade

Major Shifts in Common Core  Focus–narrower and deeper  Coherence–across grade levels; link topics within a grade  Rigor–balance among conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, application  Standards for Mathematical Practice

K 12 Number and Operations Measurement and Geometry Algebra and Functions Statistics and Probability Traditional U.S. Approach

CCSSM approach–Number & Operations Operations and Algebraic Thinking Expressions and Equations Algebra  Number and Operations— Base Ten  The Number System  Number and Operations— Fractions  K High School

Grade 1  Operations & Algebraic Thinking  Work with addition and subtraction equations.  Understand the meaning of the equal sign, and determine if equations involving addition and subtraction are true or false.  7 = 8 – 1  =  ≠ 5 + 2

Grade 6  Expressions and Equations  Apply and extend previous understandings of arithmetic to algebraic expressions.  Apply the properties of operations to generate equivalent expressions.  distributive property  3 (2 + x) = 6 + 3x  24x + 18y = 6 (4x + 3y)  y + y + y = 3y

High School: Algebra  Seeing Structure in Expressions  Write expressions in equivalent forms to solve problems.  Choose and produce an equivalent form of an expression to reveal and explain properties of the quantity represented by the expression.  Complete the square in a quadratic equation.

Common Core is  Rigorous  Research-based  Developmentally appropriate  Consistent  Coherent

Advantages of Common Core  Economies of scale  Curriculum materials (textbooks)  Teacher education and professional development  Assessment  Portable across state lines  For students who move  For teachers who move into our state  For teacher educators who prepare teachers for all 50 states and beyond

Math isn’t local  As a school board member, I support local control of a lot of things but not curriculum.  Teachers can contextualize content with examples that are appropriate to their students’ contexts, but they need to teach the same content.  Students in Macon, Savannah, Atlanta, Rome, Gainesville, and Athens need the same content.  Children in Georgia and Colorado and Massachusetts need the same content.

Fine line  It’s a fine line between  Local control of curriculum and  Discrimination.  Why wouldn’t we want Georgia’s students to learn the same content as students in Minnesota and New York and Arizona?

Recommended reading  Alan Schoenfeld, University of California Berkeley sense-about-the-common-core/