Worthington Mathematics

  • Math

    The goal of mathematics instruction in the Worthington Schools is to empower students to apply their knowledge of mathematics in the real world.

     

    Mathematics instruction is grounded in:

    Mathematics instruction is rigorous:

    Rigor in the Ohio Learning Standards for Mathematics is exemplified through instruction grounded in developing conceptual understanding, developing procedural skill and fluency, as well as application. 


    Aspect of Rigor

    Main Goals

    Effective Instructional Strategies

    Conceptual Understanding
    • Introduce concepts
    • Emphasize sense-making instead of answer-getting
    • Uncover and unscramble common misconceptions
    • Discussion and reflection: Students build their own understanding through experience, discussion, explaining, justifying, and/or reflection; teacher facilitates through questioning and making connections
    • Manipulatives and visual models: Deepen knowledge of concepts before moving to abstract representations
    • Multiple Representations: Provide opportunities for students to experience and work between different representations of the same content (ex. table, graph)
    • Error analysis: Target common misconceptions by determining if a mistake exists; explain the mistake

     

    Procedural Skill and Fluency
    • Learn or develop algorithms
    • Execute procedures accurately and efficiently
    • Learn how to use models or tools
    • Connect procedures to conceptual understanding: Link algorithms to concepts, help students understand the “why” behind the procedure
    • Explicit instruction: I Do, We Do, You Do, teacher “Think Aloud,” or teacher modeling
    • Practice: Spiraled or distributed practice with consistent teacher feedback to lead to fluency

     

    Application
    • Apply skills and understandings to: new situations, other subject areas, real-world and problem solving situations
    • Problem-solving opportunities: Provide time for student to work on tasks independently, with a partner, or in small groups with consistent teacher feedback
    • Share multiple solution methods: Facilitate classroom discussions where students share, explain, and justify a variety of problem solving strategies and/or solutions
    • Intentionally integrate content: Provide learning opportunities for students to apply their knowledge of multiple standards, clusters, or domains

    (This information identifies instructional strategies that are especially effective for each aspect of rigor. This is not an exhaustive list and note that strategies such as discussion, multiple solution methods, and integrating content apply to other aspects of rigor, as well)

     

    Mathematics instruction promotes the behaviors of mathematicians:

    The 8 Standards for Mathematical Practice represent a picture of what it looks like for students to understand and do mathematics in the classroom and should be integrated into every mathematics lesson for all students. These 8 mathematical practices elevate student learning from knowledge to application. They are the standards that ensure an understanding of math, focus on the development of reasoning, build mathematical communication, and encourage modeling and representation.

     

    1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them

    2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively

    3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others

    4. Model with mathematics

    5. Use appropriate tools strategically

    6. Attend to precision

    7. Look for and make use of structure

    8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning

Why is math taught differently in school today?

  • Why Did The Approach To Teaching Math Change With Common Core?

    One thing that business leaders, higher educational professionals, and K-12 teachers that were on the initiative panel that assembled the Standards noted is that students were largely failing in any form of strategic problem solving. They would apply the method that they learned by rote, and if it didn’t work, they’d just get frustrated and give up. Somehow, we’d taught a whole generation never to take initiative or find alternative methods to come to the same right answer. Never color outside the lines. If at first you don’t succeed, stop where you are and wait for further instructions.

    Comments (-1)

  • How Come The Math My Child Brings Home Doesn't Look Like The Math I Remember?

    The basics are changing. Arithmetic skills, although important, are no longer enough. To succeed in tomorrow's world, students must understand algebra, geometry, statistics, and probability. Business and industry demand workers who can (1) solve real world problems, (2) explain their thinking to others, (3) identify and analyze trends from data, and (4) use modern technology.

    Comments (-1)

  • The “NEW” way to do math “via Common Core” should make you mad!!!

    It (New Math Learning Standards) IS NOT about tricking kids into doing harder, more complicated work to get to an answer.  It’s about helping kids develop an understanding of mathematical concepts so that they can be flexible enough with numbers to determine for themselves what makes sense on any given math problem. 

    Comments (-1)

  • Fluency Without Fear

    Number sense is the foundation for all higher-level mathematics (Feikes & Schwingendorf, 2008). When students fail algebra it is often because they don’t have number sense. When students work on rich mathematics problems they develop number sense and they also learn and can remember math facts. When students focus on memorizing times tables they often memorize facts without number sense, which means they are very limited in what they can do and are prone to making errors.

    Comments (-1)

Mathematics Quick Links

  • Mathematics Instruction
  • K-5 Mathematics Resource Information and Support
  • 6-12 Mathematics Resource Information and Support
  • Curriculum Guides (K-8)
  • High School Course Guide
  • Math Course Progressions