“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
Twenty years ago, the nation began standard based reform as an idea to improve schooling for instructors and pupils alike. The standards established what students should know and be able to do and were supposed to offer guidance to teachers, curriculum writers and educational administration. The state standards, upon review, are all too much vague, complex and lengthy. The intentions are good, but the fact that many teachers are forced to focus their time to ‘teach to the test’ releases the accountability that all the standards are met at each grade level. This leads to gaps and repetitions in content for the students and creates problems for the educators in the child’s future. Additionally, two experts from American Educator journal state that, “State tests and state content standards don’t always match up.” Now that we have standards in place, it’s time to redo them so that they are clear and specific and a more reasonable length. In an attempt to flesh out the state standards in Math, our group has examined the nature and purpose of the essential information that will help guide teachers through the understanding process.
“Keep it simple, stupid.”
The standards help curriculum writers because they act as a springboard for developmentally appropriate instruction that builds upon prior learning. They assist teachers in determining what should be taught in the classes they are assigned. Standards hone in on specific items of knowledge and skills that successful students should master throughout the year’s lessons. In an attempt to create a list of concepts students must understand and value in order to advance, the standards became unclear and tried to encompass everything at every level. Overwhelmed teachers have fallen prey to the complexity of standards and opt for relying on the 800 page back breaking textbooks of the district mandated curriculum to “cover” the material instead of offering students a deeper understanding of the discipline. Identifying strong core standards and limiting the length and convoluted language will help give educators and curriculum developers the necessary foundation for a content rich, sequenced curriculum with aligned assessments.
“After all, what is more central to schooling than those things that we, as a society, have chosen to pass on to our children?”
The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) has confirmed that student performance is directly related to the nature of curricular expectations. Through their research, it has revealed that the focus, rigor and coherence of Math standards are of utmost importance. These three aspects are the basis of strong Math education. Unfortunately, the attempt to focus has been lost through creating a ‘to-do’ list of too many topics for coverage instead of mastering fewer topics during a given school year. This unintentional reversal of purpose leads to students who don’t have a firm grasp of the concepts they need to build upon in the later years. Administrators and standards demand rigor in the classroom, but that falls short when students need remedial teaching of basic concepts in order to process more advanced and abstract Mathematical thinking. Finally, coherence is the most important part of well-developed Math standards. The inherent weakness of our Math framework is that there is too much covered at each grade level, some may even be called developmentally inappropriate, and the breakdown begins a domino effect of struggling students at each level – preventing proper advancement.
“Everybody else is doing it, why can’t we?”
While the question of why American students miss the mark on Mathematics assessments worldwide, one has to consider whether it is the diversity and poverty of our students or our standards before placing the blame. Math curriculum does promote varied skills, concepts and activities to reach a variety of students without sacrificing individualism but it has not fostered continued growth in many students. Because standards are open to interpretation by the teacher planning the lesson there is also great variety of content taught among courses with the same level and title. This variability in course content and the plentiful amount of requisite standards creates a set of artificial tracks in the curriculum that have negative ramifications on Mathematical literacy. While other, more successful, countries focus on fewer topics, they also demand that Math is taught in a meaningful way. Curriculum writers must delineate what is important to teach and articulate those choices through the standards, textbooks and assessments of the discipline.
“Through rose colored glasses…”
The most valued aspect of teaching and learning that the standards imply is that of student and teacher dispositions. The attitudes towards Math of both pupil and instructor help to foster the strong relationship necessary to understand the essence of Mathematical thinking and its relevance to everyone’s life. It may be easy to see how a student of the discipline can break their bond with Mathematics when they feel frustrated or confused due to the standards pushing too many demands when teachers are unable to meet and address all concepts for student mastery.
“Less is more.”
Ultimately, the review of the New Jersey Math standards has brought to light the fact that the political machine’s, controlling standards development, eyes are larger than the students’ academic stomach. We have too much on our standards plate, and the abundant cornucopia of knowledge and skills that teachers must pass down the table to their students each year never truly makes it to the other end. Students are being left behind due to superficial ‘coverage’ of Mathematical concepts instead of truly digesting what is most important to learn. This starts the end of what was once a beautiful relationship between student and discipline, leading to feelings of distaste for Math and eventually avoidance of the subject altogether. Overextending teachers and students result in the reversal of what the standards’ original goal was: The student’s internal motivation to advance. In order for the standards to improve, states and districts must bring mathematicians into the standards setting process and push the politics out.
Twenty years ago, the nation began standard based reform as an idea to improve schooling for instructors and pupils alike. The standards established what students should know and be able to do and were supposed to offer guidance to teachers, curriculum writers and educational administration. The state standards, upon review, are all too much vague, complex and lengthy. The intentions are good, but the fact that many teachers are forced to focus their time to ‘teach to the test’ releases the accountability that all the standards are met at each grade level. This leads to gaps and repetitions in content for the students and creates problems for the educators in the child’s future. Additionally, two experts from American Educator journal state that, “State tests and state content standards don’t always match up.” Now that we have standards in place, it’s time to redo them so that they are clear and specific and a more reasonable length. In an attempt to flesh out the state standards in Math, our group has examined the nature and purpose of the essential information that will help guide teachers through the understanding process.
“Keep it simple, stupid.”
The standards help curriculum writers because they act as a springboard for developmentally appropriate instruction that builds upon prior learning. They assist teachers in determining what should be taught in the classes they are assigned. Standards hone in on specific items of knowledge and skills that successful students should master throughout the year’s lessons. In an attempt to create a list of concepts students must understand and value in order to advance, the standards became unclear and tried to encompass everything at every level. Overwhelmed teachers have fallen prey to the complexity of standards and opt for relying on the 800 page back breaking textbooks of the district mandated curriculum to “cover” the material instead of offering students a deeper understanding of the discipline. Identifying strong core standards and limiting the length and convoluted language will help give educators and curriculum developers the necessary foundation for a content rich, sequenced curriculum with aligned assessments.
“After all, what is more central to schooling than those things that we, as a society, have chosen to pass on to our children?”
The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) has confirmed that student performance is directly related to the nature of curricular expectations. Through their research, it has revealed that the focus, rigor and coherence of Math standards are of utmost importance. These three aspects are the basis of strong Math education. Unfortunately, the attempt to focus has been lost through creating a ‘to-do’ list of too many topics for coverage instead of mastering fewer topics during a given school year. This unintentional reversal of purpose leads to students who don’t have a firm grasp of the concepts they need to build upon in the later years. Administrators and standards demand rigor in the classroom, but that falls short when students need remedial teaching of basic concepts in order to process more advanced and abstract Mathematical thinking. Finally, coherence is the most important part of well-developed Math standards. The inherent weakness of our Math framework is that there is too much covered at each grade level, some may even be called developmentally inappropriate, and the breakdown begins a domino effect of struggling students at each level – preventing proper advancement.
“Everybody else is doing it, why can’t we?”
While the question of why American students miss the mark on Mathematics assessments worldwide, one has to consider whether it is the diversity and poverty of our students or our standards before placing the blame. Math curriculum does promote varied skills, concepts and activities to reach a variety of students without sacrificing individualism but it has not fostered continued growth in many students. Because standards are open to interpretation by the teacher planning the lesson there is also great variety of content taught among courses with the same level and title. This variability in course content and the plentiful amount of requisite standards creates a set of artificial tracks in the curriculum that have negative ramifications on Mathematical literacy. While other, more successful, countries focus on fewer topics, they also demand that Math is taught in a meaningful way. Curriculum writers must delineate what is important to teach and articulate those choices through the standards, textbooks and assessments of the discipline.
“Through rose colored glasses…”
The most valued aspect of teaching and learning that the standards imply is that of student and teacher dispositions. The attitudes towards Math of both pupil and instructor help to foster the strong relationship necessary to understand the essence of Mathematical thinking and its relevance to everyone’s life. It may be easy to see how a student of the discipline can break their bond with Mathematics when they feel frustrated or confused due to the standards pushing too many demands when teachers are unable to meet and address all concepts for student mastery.
“Less is more.”
Ultimately, the review of the New Jersey Math standards has brought to light the fact that the political machine’s, controlling standards development, eyes are larger than the students’ academic stomach. We have too much on our standards plate, and the abundant cornucopia of knowledge and skills that teachers must pass down the table to their students each year never truly makes it to the other end. Students are being left behind due to superficial ‘coverage’ of Mathematical concepts instead of truly digesting what is most important to learn. This starts the end of what was once a beautiful relationship between student and discipline, leading to feelings of distaste for Math and eventually avoidance of the subject altogether. Overextending teachers and students result in the reversal of what the standards’ original goal was: The student’s internal motivation to advance. In order for the standards to improve, states and districts must bring mathematicians into the standards setting process and push the politics out.
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1 comment:
As a Math Teacher, and a person with an undergraduate degree in Mathematics, I can definitely relate to all of these comments. Now that NCLB is in place, teachers have to teach a certain amount of content before the test. Ultimately, the students miss out. It is difficult to be creative and allow time for critical thinking to take place in the math classroom when there is truly so little time to give. Teachers have to superficially cover the content so that students are at least exposed to the material. However, students are not learning because they do not have a deep understanding of the content. And just when a student might understand something, it is on to the next topic. It is frustrating for educators and students!
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