Math+Review+Group


 * //Standards and Assessment Review Group: //**

We are looking for a small cross-sector group (2- and 4-year faculty and K-12 educators) with a keen interest in college readiness issues and preferably some familiarity with the Washington College Readiness Math Standards or the College Readiness Definitions in English; for K-12 educators, a basic understanding of the Common Core State Standards would be very helpful. This group will convene in May, 2012 for an initial one-day discussion with disciplinary peers (math or English); the focus of the meeting will be to build faculty ownership and understanding of the CCSS as meaningful and useful college-readiness standards by exploring the feasibility of and format for a crosswalk between the existing Washington college readiness standards in math and English Language Arts and the CCSS. This group will re-convene in 2013 and 2014 to examine the Smarter Balanced assessment in detail as it becomes available in order to review its relevance as a college-readiness assessment for Washington higher education. __All meeting and travel costs for members of this group will be covered by the project.__ To indicate your interest in this Review Group, complete the appropriate form included with this invitation and send it to Bill Moore at bmoore@sbctc.edu **by March 23, 2012**.

A group of almost 50 educators (math and English language arts, high school, community and technical colleges, and baccalaureate institutions) met in May 2012 to begin discussions regarding the impact of the Common Core State Standards on students matriculating into the two-year and four-year college and university environment. The math group was divided into cross sector teams, each of which looked in depth at one Conceptual Category (e.g. Geometry), looking at the big ideas of the category as well as the particular learning targets in that area. Each team had access to the Common Core Standards and the Washington State Performance Expectations to provide background about existing expectations and changes in content, complexity and demonstration of deep understanding. Below is a summary of the group discussion followed by the “big questions” raised for future exploration by the group.

__ Reactions to Standards __


 * Overall, participants liked the Standards for Mathematical Practice very much. They agreed that if students had these habits of mind upon entering a post-secondary institution, they would certainly be college ready.
 * There was general agreement that teaching the algebra and function strands well was the most important factor for success in college mathematics.
 * Many participants thought that the geometry standards were too involved and partially unnecessary for entrance into a college credit bearing mathematics course while others felt that student heading into a STEM field would need those geometric understandings to enter into calculus.
 * The probability and statistics group felt strongly that, in particular, the statistics standards are necessary for all citizens to participate in business, government and communication but not necessary for entrance into a college credit bearing course.
 * Every group found the Common Core State Standards in Math acceptable entry level to college credit bearing courses at some extent. Again, the emphasis was on the Algebra and Functions Conceptual Categories as key foundation pieces.

__ Implications of Standards for Practice __


 * There was some discussion of teaching these standards in the developmental math education program in the two-year institutions.
 * The conversations around the Standards for Mathematical Practice were general in nature with little discussion of way that the practices would be taught, sustained or employed on the post-secondary classroom.
 * There was some discussion reflecting on the changes that would be necessary in credit bearing college level courses or developmental courses when the standards are fully implemented.
 * Many groups indicated a willingness to consider an assessment of the CCSS as an indicator of readiness for college credit bearing courses though most stated it would be one of several indicators considered.

__ Areas of Disagreement __


 * In the Functions Conceptual Category, there was widespread and persistent disagreement as to the inclusion of teaching transformation of graphs (required by the CCSS) and the teaching of function inverses (a (+) standard in CCSS.) The study of logarithms as an inverse function and also the of the study laws of logarithms caused deep discussion. Many viewpoints surfaced that indicated a wide disparity in expectations around the importance of logarithms.

__ Overall __ Many of the limitations of the understanding of the CCSS occurred because it was a first experience with these standards for many of the participants and the time was very limited. Many of the post-secondary participants were enthusiastic about learning more about the CCSS and indicated that they were anxious to share what they learned with their colleagues. Many felt that implementation of the CCSS would positively impact students in the post-secondary environment but few commented on the subsequent changes that would happen in their courses. Further opportunity to explore the standards and to experience the specific content problem examples associated with the standards would be a good use of time to increase understanding.