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

Wow, cricket3, that's really great about how they're teaching. Not so great about the anti-acceleration policy, though.

Val, all my kids and I learn fraction the way Professor Wu recommended. The LCM approach was taught after the foundation was already laid and understanding secured. I was taught by an ancient (expert) 5th grade teacher and a brilliant 6th grade teacher (engineering degree/experience) who were masters at in-class differentiation.

My children went to a school on the other side of the country from where I grew up and were seven years apart. Basic fractions were introduced in second grade math. Fraction manipulations were taught step by step in 3rd grade GT math (3rd and 4th grade math combined) along the lines of Professor Wu's approach. Then more complicated fraction manipulations like division were presented in 4th grade GT math (5th grade math). By 5th grade GT math (6th grade math), the students were expected to use the LCM approach and cross reduction efficiently. Based on the discussions and assessments prior to DS' acceleration into Pre-algebra at the beginning of 4th grade, our district predicates acceleration into Pre-algebra on mastery of fractions.

Cricket3, I also believe that Common Core will make it more difficult for students to accelerate in our elementary schools as well. The plan is to make GT math more rigorous by including more higher level math beyond the current one year acceleration plus enrichment. I am glad that DS was just ahead of that wave and is allowed to study algebra as a 5th grader this year. Interestingly, the Common Core inspired changes to the GT math curriculum would have benefited his less mathy twin sister, who refused acceleration, but completed Aleks 6th grade math the summer after 3rd grade when I had DS complete Aleks pre-algebra to decide on the advisability of another acceleration.

I've heard that too, that it will be harder to accelerate kids in math with the Common Core.
Currently my son, our in local public school gifted program, would take 7th grade Algebra I, 8th grade Geometry, 9th grade Algebra II (I think that's what that it), 10th grade Pre-Calculus, 11th grade AP AB Calculus, 12th grade AP BC Calculus. Plus they have AP statistics too.

Well, it definitely makes acceleration harder in the elementary years, at least that's my impression. Perhaps when they have taught this curriculum for a while things will change (though now that I think back, my daughter's third grade math class was already doing this, it was not new then, and that was 5 years ago...). However, they are still coming up with benchmark assessments and stuff like that, so even figuring out where a kid should be (if advancing, I mean) is not clear. Like Quantum2003 mentioned, there is a lot of spiraling and building on complexity; the repetition that our kids really don't need but which seems to be key for many kids. The school has done a relatively good job with enrichment/deeper material at times which has been great for our kids, but it is not built into the curriculum and therefore teacher-dependent. However, this curriculum seems to lend itself more easily to those kind of detours, I think. But the multi-year acceleration thing is not happening here- we know families who left the district over this issue. (There are too many positives outweighing this for us to leave, though it is frustrating).

Jack's mom, our advanced sequence of math also ends at calculus BC, with the option of AP stats. I think the topics now are arranged differently than they traditionally were, and there is more compaction- I don't think we have a "pre-calculus" course, for example (though it has been a while since I checked the course catalog).

Cricket3 is right. Here's a piece by Hung-Hsi Wu on acceleration
To Accelerate, or Not
Unfortunately, Common Core will make acceleration even more difficult for many students.

Well, that was depressing. I would expect better logic than this from a mathematician :


Talk about two different things! There doesn't seem to be any room for learning faster and learning thoroughly.

[speechless]

Okay, this is serious. Who is this guy Hung-Hsi Wu?

He was one of the people who wrote the Common Core Math standards. He's the guy whose work I've been quoting all over this thread.

Which is what makes his blog post so incredibly depressing.