Memo- Updated Regents ScheduleA memo that was released on January 27, 2014 providing an updated schedule for the June 2014 Regents. Concerns had been voiced about having enough graphing calculators for all students taking mathematics Regents on Friday, June 20, 2014. The Regents Examination in Algebra 2/Trigonometry will now be administered on Wednesday, June 18, 2014 at 1:15 p.m. and the Regents Examination in Physical Setting/Physics will now be administered on Friday, June 20, 2014 at 1:15 p.m. Here is the memo that was sent out on December 9, 2013 regarding the new 3-8 ELA and Math Testing Guides
Colleagues, The Grades 3-8 ELA and Math Test Guides were posted at http://www.engageny.org/resource/test-guides-for-english-language-arts-and-mathematics. The Test Guides for English Language Arts and Mathematics will address the following topics for each grade: + the instructional shifts demanded by ELA and Mathematics CCLS; + how ELA and Mathematics are conceptualized in the CCLS; + the 2014 Common Core ELA and Mathematics Tests content and design; and + the CCLS rubrics for short and extended constructed response questions. The Grade 38 Common Core English Language Arts Test Guides will introduce several changes that differentiate the 2014 CCLS English Language Arts Tests from past New York State tests. Some of the important changes discussed in the 2014 English Language Arts Test Guides include: + additional information about authentic passages + the 2014 ELA tests will be split into 3 books administered across 3 days + Day 2 will consist of one book with both multiple-choice and constructed response questions + in Grades 5-8, Day 2 will have fewer passages and questions than Day 2 of the 2013 tests Similarly, the Grade 3-8 Common Core Mathematics Guides will highlight many ways that the 2014 CCLS Mathematics Tests will be different from past New York State tests. Some of the important changes discussed in the 2014 CCLS Mathematics Test Guides include: + fewer questions on the 2014 Grades 3-8 Mathematics Tests than the 2013 tests; + shorter administration times for the 2014 Grade 3-8 Mathematics Tests than in 2013; + clarifications to the Mathematics rubrics and scoring policies; and + a change in content emphasis in Grade 8 We hope the Test Guides will assist educators in their efforts to provide high quality instruction of these rigorous learning objectives. Thank you, Ken Wagner Several people have asked, "What can we do to help parents be better able to help their children with the math homework?"
Here a few thoughts that might help you as you work to support the parents in your district. 1) Help parents make sense of the models that are being used to make connections across mathematical topics. These tools are used to represent a problem, illustrate connections, and equip students to explain mathematical relationships efficiently. Once you see how the models are used across the grades, it makes more sense why students are being asked to use them. Pages 26-44 of "How to Implement a Story of Units" provides a quick overview of these tools and a little sample of how they are used throughout the elementary grades. The following videos from EngageNY also provide some examples of the models and mathematical thinking they support. The first video explains the purpose of number stairs, number paths, and number bonds for learning early mathematical concepts. This video explains how 3rd-5th graders can use tape diagrams to help them make sense of a word problem. Once you see how the parts are related a complicated problem becomes much easier. This video explains how arrays lead to area models. The area models are structured to help students connect portions of area to the partial products in the multiplication algorithm (Grades 3-5). 2) Give parents a sample. For most lessons, the homework closely mimics the problem set. This was designed to provide examples that will help with the homework problems. If you don't have students complete the entire problem set, be mindful to only assign the questions that they would have samples of or have students do an example on their homework page before they take it home. Be sure that both students and parents know to look at the problem set, and that students know to keep the two pages together. 3) Set a time frame vs a task frame. During the lesson students are expected to give their best work on the Problem Set for 10 min. Regardless of your ability level, you are expected to work diligently for the entire time frame. Consider applying this idea to homework. How much time do you plan on students spending on the homework? Communicate this time frame to parents. Prioritize the homework questions so that students can experience a balanced diet of problems as they work through the time frame. When the time is up, the student should stop working. This approach is a safety net to prevent math homework from turning into a frustrating, 2-hour ordeal. A night of crying kids and parents who are pulling their hair out isn't terribly productive. If a student isn't able to do the assigned problems, that is valuable feedback. If the work your receive back from students indicates that they are not giving their personal best, you can work with those students and parents to address the concern. Encourage parents to partner with you so we can help students experience success as they work towards mastery. This picture shows the targeted release dates for the math modules. Module 1 for Grades K-5 has been posted on Engageny. Many of you have asked when we can expect revisions to be made to the posted modules. We have heard that corrections to typos will be posted in July. We have also heard that they will provide information as to what changes were made so that you don't have to reprint the entire document.
The slide above comes from the Day Three presentation posted on this page of Engageny. http://www.engageny.org/resource/network-team-institute-materials-may-13-16-2013-general-session-materials# A Call to Action- How do we escape the whirlwind of the day to day to get the support and the information that we desperately need? What would it look like to have professional engagement in social media that's valuable and provides a good return for your investment of time? Here are a few ideas to help you get started. Global Math Department- This Tuesday at 9pm Eastern- Teachers from all over will share "My Favorites." You can login and listen. If you want to get involved and present something you're doing, you can contact the organizers of the event and get on the schedule for a future event. Practice Blogs- Teachers are opening the doors of their classrooms and sharing what they have done. Some of these posts reflect great successes and other reflect on failure. But either way the purpose is understanding how students learn and how to reach them. The resources are great, but the conversation that emerges through the comments is where the best learning takes place. Check out this example on Mulletude and note how Matt Vaudrey got his inspiration for this lesson, how he shared his thought process, and how his community of readers responded to this post. 180 Blogs- Teachers that are taking a picture of what they are doing everyday of the year and posting it. Sometimes they include a description of what they are doing, sometimes the picture speaks for itself. This image below is of the Mistake Game- from the 180 day blog by bowmanimal180. Students create a solution with a mistake. Then rather than sharing solutions, the students figure out how to correct the work. Here is an example of an elementary 180 blog by Sadie Estrella. Mathmistakes.org Teachers take a photo of a mistake and then they email them to this site so that there is a compliation of work to examine. Teachers examine what they think the mistake was and what caused the problem. Knowing what they did wrong is essential to figuring out how to correct the misunderstanding.
Twitter and Pinterest are also great resources for teachers. I must confess that I've only dabbled in them. Sooooo here's the challenge. If you have suggestions for using Twitter or Pinterest, please share your tips by commenting to this post. Based a presentation by Ashli Black at IM&E Conference in Syracuse, NY 3.3.2013 Last year we put a link to the resources on learnzillions on our Useful Links page. At that time it was a nice resource with little video clips that explained the mathematics in the common core standards. This Fall this resource became a lot more valuable. The clips are arranged into a lesson sequence folders. The lessons were created by teachers who applied to be part of the process. Their work was vetted by mathmatics coaches before the videos were recorded. The original vision was to create a site to capture the ways that effective teachers explain the content. We can always make a lesson better, but that job is a lot easier if you have something to start with. This allows you to "polish the stone" without having to reinvent the wheel. That's the goal of this site. Currently there are not lessons for K-2, but they are working on getting those sets of lessons up there. Check it out. http://learnzillion.com/
Use the comment tool for this post to share your ideas of how you have used this resource. Many people have been asking when will we hear more about the modules. The staff development team at Erie 2 Boces and a few teacher and administrator ambassadors will be going to Albany for training on curriculum modules during the first week of February. According to the agenda we received for the training, we will get modules for Kindergarten and Third Grade. The Common Core, Inc. training for the February NTI for P-5 Mathematics will:
Explore and analyze the focus of Grade K—Module 5 and Grade 3—Module 5. Examine the K–5 progressions documents with particular emphasis on Number and Operations—Fractions. Explore how content knowledge directed by the progressions documents supports the implementation of coherence in the classroom. Deepen the study of rigor by examining its relationship to coherence using examples from Grade K—Module 5 and Grade 3—Module 5. In order to make room for materials specific to grade levels, the weebly pages have been reorganized. In the past the pages were listed in a single level on the left hand side of the page. Looking at the information that needs to be shared, we need to reorganize the weebly to make room for grade specific resources as they are made available from the state and as we generate resources regionally.
If you hover over the Math Resources tab on the left you will see the CCLS documents, a page for elementary, middle and high school. If you click on one of those it takes you to the landing page for the grade range. As we have been working with module 3 for grades 2 and 5, we have noticed that there are some resources that are referenced and not included. We will begin posting those on the grade level pages. Right now, the pages have been created for module 3 for grade 2 and 5. The sprint table of contents are under fluency. The Illustrative Mathematics page and the Models to Support Thinking pages are under deep understanding |
Stay Informed!We have created this blog to keep you updated on recent developments of the Math Archives
June 2014
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