Attend to precision and make sense & perservere

5-21-14

             There  are several CCSS standards when it comes to teaching math to elementary students. The two that I am going to discuss are attend to precision and make sense & persevere. These two, along with the other CCSS standards, will help your students be successful when it comes to math. Also, having the students proficient in these two standards will help their anxiety levels lower when it comes to math. 

             The first standard I will discuss is make sense and persevere. There are many things that you can say about this standard. The first thing that needs to be said is that not every problem that your students will in contact with will have a clear cut solution to figuring it out. This means, that the students will have to have several chances to attempt the problem. With that being said, you need to consider several different questions when you are examining the types of problems you are giving students. This is because, when you are giving students problems, your job as a teacher is to have your students understanding the many different mathematical concepts so well that you are confident that even if they don't see the solution right away, they will still be able to think through a problem based on what formulas, etc. they already know. 

          The second standard that I will be discussing is attend to precision. This is important because it pertains a lot to how the students communicate in the subject of mathematics. This includes labeling answers, being clear and concise when using definitions, using definitions properly, etc. This also goes for calculations and procedures. These are particularly important because students need to be specific especially when it comes to, for example, conversions in later elementary years. You would certainly apply this,for instance,in fourth grade when dealing with measurement, units of time, etc. You could take off a point for each time they don't use a label to accompany their answer. You can also relate this to your students everyday lives by getting them involved in a discussion on how confusing it would be to explain to someone increments or specific numbers with no labels, etc. 

              There are two articles that I read pertaining to these two specific standards. The first article is called "Reasoning and Sense." This article pertains to the standard make sense and persevere. The article gives a very good definition of what the word sense making means. The authors, Kasmer and Martin, say that reasoning and sense making are intertwined. Another good point of the article is that there no is  the need to shift from students just memorizing formulas ,etc. and actually understanding the big mathematical ideas that are the foundation in their younger elementary years for when they reach  the secondary years. That also hits home when it comes to persevering because if the students are able to fully grasp the concepts or big ideas in the elementary years, then they will be able to persevere and work through much more complicated problems in their late elementary to secondary years. Also, a way to apply this particular standard to your classroom is by creating problems that will challenge the  students and make them persevere by having to make sense of the what the problem is asking and think of different solutions to try like in story problems.

    The second article I read was "Multidimensional Teaching." This pertained to attend to precision. This article goes into detail on how you need to pay particular the social and cultural aspects of your classroom in order to implement multidimensional teaching into your classroom. This pertains to this particular standard because you are paying attention to fine detail and precision by looking at the cultural and social aspects, which is then modeled to your students through mathematics when it comes to the fine details like labels, etc. This article even gives a teaching example on how to implement this into the classroom.