Todays Coffee Talk - by Friends @ Your Bright Side, PLC As a private student services practice, our practice fields a lot of questions regarding Common Core from parents. No matter where your kids go to school, public or private, in Utah or in Florida, your state has set academic standards for your childs education. In order for students to be able to graduate HS and move on to college & go anywhere in the country for a college degree, there are certain things they need to know in order to be successful. They need to be prepared. Period. We need to simmer down about this Common Core stuff & realize that the old standards of education just dont cut it for our kids to be successful for the 21st Century. The new standards although difficult for US, the parents, to understand & may even instill some anxiety, fear & feelings of inadequacy when were doing homework with our kids, really are better for THEM (not us). Below are some examples in Math that were directly transmitted from a website called excelined.org that helps US better understand why the old standards were asking our kids only to memorize & not THINK. To be educated only linearly and not vertically , to come up with the right answer instead of knowing the process of how to get the right answer. Elementary Level Example Past: Each shirt costs $4. How much do 3 shirts cost? This question can be answered by a “count-all” strategy, in which you don’t need to know your multiplication tables by memory to get the right answer. Present: Each shirt has 6 buttons. How many buttons are needed to make 7 shirts? This question requires automatic recall of multiplication tables to get at the right answer. Middle School Examples Donna buys 40 apples at 35 cents each. She eats 2 apples and sells the rest for 45 cents each. How much money does she make? This question only requires use of simple arithmetic. Donna buys some apples at 35 cents each. She eats 2 apples and sells the rest for 45 cents each. She makes $4.40. How many apples did she buy? This question requires use of an algebraic equation. A bird flew 20 miles in 100 minutes at constant speed. At that speed, how long would it take the bird to fly 6 miles? This question requires one calculation, using a formula. A bird flew 20 miles in 100 minutes at constant speed. At that speed: (a) how long would it take the bird to fly 6 miles? (b) How far would the bird fly in 15 minutes? (c) How fast is the bird flying in miles per hour? (d) What is the bird’s pace in minutes per mile? This question requires a series of calculations and reasoning. It measures if students understand why the formula works. Now...talk amongst yourselves Happy Friday!!!
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 13:43:19 +0000
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