Applying Common Core Standards

Applying Common Core Standards

M5.U1.A4

I have never taught the common core, but one thing that I do like about it is that it is all laid out for you. It is great to be able to see the standards for the grade level you are teaching as well as the standards for the levels before and after you. In looking at those standards, you are better able to understand where your students levels are at when they are coming in as well as how you should prepare them for their next grade level.

The common core standards build upon one another. So you as a teacher must be able to break them down and apply them in your classroom in order for your students to gather the necessary knowledge to complete what is required of them the following year. What I liked about this unit that I just finished was that we took a deeper look into the common core. We unpacked standards, used backwards mapping, and wrote objectives.

What I learned:

Unpacking Standards
Unpacking the standards really helped me. When I first took a look at the standards, I wasn’t 100% sure what the standard is asking, but now after unpacking them they become clear. When you unpack the standards you must look at it and ask yourself, “what is the big idea?”

Once you know the big idea then you must think what is asked of the students. Will they write, will they have to speak, what is it that they must be able to perform? Then after the major idea and what is asked of them comes the how.

Example:

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.OA.A.1

Use parentheses, brackets, or braces in numerical expressions, and evaluate expressions with these symbols.

Big Idea

In this standard, the big idea is that students are able to understand multi-step problems and the order of operations. The problem uses more than + - x /   

What will the students do?

The students will USE parentheses, brackets, or braces

They will also EVALUATE expressions with those symbols.

So the students must be able to evaluate expressions that use ( ) or [ ]

Backwards Mapping

The How? By using backwards mapping, you can take the knowledge you just gathered from unpacking the standard and begin to apply it. When you are backwards mapping you must look at what you want the students to achieve and then work back from there. Many times when a teacher designs a unit without this thought process, their lessons might start with the same end goal but over the course of the unit their lessons begin going in another way. When using backwards mapping you have your objective and begin to think, what do they need to learn to understand this. Then after that you will have to think of how will I know if these students are understanding this. The teacher must put together a way to assess the students along the way. After that, you must think of activities that will coincide with the unit objective. Little by little you will formulate your unit with the core objective as the main focal point.

Goal --> Assessment --> Activities

Example:

Goal:
24 + (3 x 9) / 2 =

Assessment:

The teacher will hand out a worksheet as homework that can be graded and worked through together as a class the next day.

Activities:

Practice

PEMDAS = Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction

*this unit doesn't mention the use of exponents

The teacher will teach how to do these problems then give them a worksheet to do together with a partner.

Writing Objectives

This was one area that I am still struggling with. I know as I get more practice the stronger I will become at this. I am able to think of activities and lessons that are able to meet the standards, I just feel like I have trouble with writing S.M.A.R.T. Objectives.

S.M.A.R.T. = Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Targeted.