Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Common Core Mathematics: background

Thank you for sharing these links. Similarly, I also found information regarding serving gifted pupils, when reading ABOUT the Common Core, but not IN the Common Core.

While the Common Core is presented as State Standards, the information at these links shows that international sources also informed the creation of Common Core. In discussing this and other talking points presented, some excerpts and phrases which may raise questions include:
1) "Students who are truly prepared for an accelerated sequence should also have access to one." Because of how this is worded, some might wonder whether "truly prepared " indicates not only readiness and ability based upon mathematical mastery but also skill in writing, etc.
2) "Students who have demonstrated the ability to meet the full expectations of the standards quickly should, of course, be encouraged to do so." Some may ask whether all students meet the full expectations? In other words, does "full expectations" mean 100% mastery, or 80% to pass, or...? How quickly may children meet these expectations? May pupils and/or their parents request end-of-year tests at various intervals? May pupils work ahead, at their own comfortable pace, with support, and without admonishment?
3) "Data from international studies suggest that we are far behind the rest of world in bringing even our advantaged students to the highest levels of accomplishment." Might this have been presented as a chart or numerical comparison rather than a generalized statement without definition of "advantaged" or "highest levels of accomplishment"?
4) "There should also be a variety of ways and opportunities for students to advance to mathematics courses beyond those included in the 2011 Framework. Districts are encouraged to work with their mathematics leadership, teachers, and curriculum coordinators to design pathways that best meet the needs of their students." Curriculum compacting (three years of math condensed slightly to two years) and doubling-up enrollment in math classes are discussed. Neither of these options explored sound like they may meet the wishes often expressed by parents on gifted forums. Fortunately, the talking points do not state a prohibition to skipping.
5) "Common standards also allow the nation’s teacher preparation programs to be more focused on the mathematics teachers will be teaching, rather than on generic courses designed for a wide variety of state standards." Some may wonder whether a teacher less versed in mathematics beyond the prescribed standards for one's grade level may be less inclined to provide curriculum compacting or other acceleration support.

Honestly, I'm not seeing how this presents the schools with a different problem than the one they've been facing for decades. Schools have always had curriculum standards. Students who exceed those standards for their age level have always had a need for acceleration. And the new standards are not a radical departure from those faced by previous generations.

Ye, but schools resist acceleration like it was tantamount to feeding plutonium to students. The Common Core and the various writings about them claiming that acceleration isn't necessary just give the anti-acceleration and/or anti-gifted crowd more excuses.



Well, I agree that they aren't profound. My DD9 needed about 30 minutes to learn the 3rd grade fraction standards, and an hour-ish for the fourth grade fraction standards. And I was teaching her the stuff that Wu teaches to the teachers (i.e. he does basic proofs using algebra). If I was just teaching her the stuff they teach students, we would have done 3rd through 5th grade CC fractions in a single session and she would have been feeling underchallenged by the end of it.

But the math standards are a significant departure from the usual memorize-and-move-on approach, and there are presumably a lot of teachers out there who are feeling uncomfortable around them. I've read through the fractions standards. They're arguably the most difficult of the K-6 stuff, yet also are extremely important. I can see that a teacher who had relied on rote teaching of algorithms from a book would feel stressed by these standards. TBH, unless schools start hiring math specialists for K-8 students, I'm dubious about the CC's chances for success.

I am, as well.

I'll also say that as long as spiraling is ubiquitous as a feature of coherent curriculum design (and it certainly still is, in spite of the shell game of moving things about and using the term "rigor" until I have a regrettable, cheeky impulse to ask my software to replace it with rigor mortis instead...);

well, as long as spiraling is happening in significant amounts, as much as I personally have a preference for supporting compacting over "skipping" to start with, I have to say that it really isn't suitable as an approach for accommodating highly able mastery learners.

Ask me how well compacting worked for my own HG+ daughter in mathematics. Go ahead. Ask me.

(Hint: it made both of us CRAZY-- and led to truly almost unfathomable hatred of the subject and refusal on her part.)

Wow, I'd like to know more. To me, compacting means, "go through the material at a faster rate with fewer repetitions." However, after reading your message, I'm questioning my idea. What happened?

Okay, going through the material at a faster rate is great-- and works just as intended...

provided that the curriculum itself doesn't keep looping back to repeat the same topics ad nauseum.

Currently, that is precisely what K-8 mathematics seems to be dead-set on doing.

Apparently spiraling is a highly effective tool for most average and below-average students in mathematics, because it reinforces skills and slowly builds upon previous learning (or fixes it as needed) in order to construct proficiency, say, with place value.

Or fractions.

Or multiplication.

{sigh}

The problem is that HG+ kids who are mastery-oriented learners (and so many of them are)-- they notice the holes in the explanations, and worry at them like terriers the FIRST time around, interrogating teachers until they GET all four years' worth of explanations out of them.

OR-- they can see that there is just so little there there (novelty to learn from) that they refuse to engage with it at all. {yawn}

We saw both things happen IN SPADES with my DD.

Now, some kids are more compliant about demonstrating skills that are three or four years in the rear view mirror, and there was a time (3-7yo, about) when my DD was, too.

Also-- that tends to build really negative socially prescribed perfectionism in those kids who are susceptible to it, because they eventually come to a place where they already KNOW what they are being offered-- all of it-- and therefore there is NO reward for learning, only punishment for not knowing/showing-- perfectly.

Does that make sense?

This is why my hypothesis is that with this type of learner, it's way better not to introduce topics that they don't have the skills/tools to REALLY dig into and master. Teach it like you're building a pyramid. Upside down.



But that's not how math curricula are intended or constructed. Singapore comes closest to that ideal, with the least spiraling/repeating and the lowest levels of drill-and-kill... but most N. American curricula at this point is fatally flawed for this kind of student, IMO.

Now that she's finally into traditional "college" mathematics, the repetition is virtually nonexistent, and she is rediscovering a passionate love for the subject.

I don't consider that a coincidence at all. But I do consider it to be rather ominous for other kids like her. Common Core (from what I've seen of the curricula designed around it, which, as noted elsewhere, has been limited to the middle grades and early high school math) doesn't seem to have fixed this underlying problem of relying upon extensive spiraling for efficacy.

Compacting is supposed to represent a mastery based approach to material. It is supposed to allow for skipping mastered material. Functionally different than accelerating through a curriculum which may be structured with intentional repeated material.

I like this quote from a seminar doc about compacting:
"Curriculum Compacting might best be thought of as organized common sense, because it simply recommends the natural pattern that teachers ordinarily would follow if they were individualizing instruction for each student. "

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/sem/semart08.html

Val posted this elsewhere.
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....eo_criticizing_Common_Co.html#Post175160

In my google search "common core acceleration" I came across this
http://commoncoretools.me/forums/topic/acceleration/
which is a forum thread with Bill McCallum responding to question about Common Core and acceleration.

Very interesting. Thanks for the link, 22b.