‘Dancing With The Stars’ helps students learn math
Previously, we’ve shared how California teacher Elizabeth Little uses her state’s high standards to teach students to make a banana calculator, and how Lauren Leigh Kelley in New York has been using hip-hop in her literacy curriculum. But here’s another creative curriculum pairing we weren’t expecting to hear about: Dancing With the Stars and high...
Could “I’m not a math person” become a thing of the past?
Students across the United States are making meaningful gains. A huge amount of credit goes to teachers, parents, and students for the hard work they’ve put in. However high standards have played an important role too! As Jim Cowen explained last week, the results from 2016 assessments “suggest that the promise of higher academic standards—whatever...
States’ Focus on Building Math Understanding Is Helping Students. It’s Important They Continue to Make Parents Part of the Process
As states have raised classroom expectations and begun to focus math instruction on developing fluency and understanding, it has become “difficult and/or impossible for some parents to grasp” math concepts, writes Fay Kimmins, a Kentucky resident in a letter to the Paducah Day. “Assisting with homework becomes comparable to a parent finishing a surgery initiated...
Does Common Core Add Up for California’s Math Students? Absolutely.
While most states raised expectations for students by adopting the Common Core, the “opposite is true” in California, claims Wayne Bishop, a math professor at California State University-Los Angeles, in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. The problem, the piece alleges, is the “Common Core math standards, and the misguided philosophy of mathematics education behind them.”...
Shifts to Math Instruction Build Understanding. That’s an Important Step to Help Students Succeed
Common Core State Standards’ emphasis on helping students build understanding in math is “fine in theory—until you think about it for five minutes,” Steven Singer, an education blogger, argues on the website Common Dreams. “This is the problem with Common Core math. It doesn’t merely ALLOW students to pursue alternate methods of solving problems....
Teachers’ Advice to Parents about Common Core Math Homework
It isn’t uncommon to see posts on social media from parents who are confused by what is happening in their child’s classroom, especially when it comes to math homework. Common Core is often blamed for the unfamiliar math methods — but in fact, lots of these methods weren’t created by the Common Core, they are...