Common Core Mathematics Support Through Illustrative Mathematics:)

As students continue to interact with the common core math standards, they may require a variety of additional supports to build proficiency in the academic demands of math.  Thinking outside the box will be a necessary tool in applying math skills to real world scenarios.  Students will face such challenges as members of task team where collaboration will be the focus in arriving at solutions to a problem.   Such a skill is one that the real world demands in this global workforce. 

Since not every student grasps key concepts at the same time, teachers may wish to employ additional strategies to deliver content effectively to English language learners and those with special needs.  Computers enter the picture here since they have infinite patience.  In this economy, support tools should be free since many districts suffer from ever shrinking budgets.

Keeping this in mind, teachers may like  illustrative mathematics.  All of the math standards are covered here from grades K-12.  Teachers can select the area of math where the students need either to further hone their skills or a real world problem that a team of students must solve.  Another  impressive of this free site is that are a few videos where students explain how they arrived at their answers down to the smallest detail.  This is what common core demands.  Students must go beyond a simple answer to including detailed commentary on how they arrived at their answers.  Of course, this new look at solving problems is probably very unfamiliar to students so such videos might support teachers trying to train students on how to accomplish this goal.

I am not a math teacher, but I do believe that this, along with Khan Academy, would just be another tool to meet the same end---student success:)

Denise

ELL TEACHER PROS
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Common Core Math Standards + Graphing Stories Site = Student Access to Content

Through this site, students are presented with real world applications to math.  Graphing tied to scenarios which are familiar to students leads to a far better grasp of content than relying on textbooks.  This is not to say that textbooks have no value, but for many students (especially language minority students with limited reading and writing skills), the reading level of the text is several years above theirs.  How does a teacher bridge the gap between what students bring to class and the grade-level content of the text?  Practical real world applications allow students to access math and more importantly build self-confidence in tackling math in any scenario.

GRAPHING STORIES

With all the mathematical concepts and vocabulary being tied to short simple video clips, the teacher provides access to both content and language development.  For ELLs, every teacher must be a language teacher and that includes math teachers at any level of mathematics.  In GRAPHING STORIES, ELLs learn key vocabulary in context while they learn to enjoy math!

Denise

ELL TEACHER PROS