Math In Worthington
The goal of mathematics instruction in Worthington School is to empower students to apply their knowledge of mathematics in the real world.
Math instruction is grounded in:
Math 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
- Introduce concepts
- Emphasize sense-making instead of answer-getting
- Uncover and unscramble common misconceptions
Instructional Strategies
- 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
- 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
- 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
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.
- Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them
- Reason abstractly and quantitatively
- Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others
- Model with mathematics
- Use appropriate tools strategically
- Attend to precision
- Look for and make use of structure
- 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?
- How Come The Math My Child Brings Home Doesn't Look Like The Math I Remember?
- The “NEW” way to do math “via Common Core” should make you mad!
- Fluency Without Fear