"For math teachers, conversion to new standards may be tough"

The article, "For math teachers, conversions to new standards may be tough" discusses the challenges that math teachers are likely to encounter with the adoption of Common Core State Standards (CCSS).  CCSS coursework "builds sequentially" which means that if a student did not cover a topic under the old standards, they may show up next year with that topic as a gap.  During this shift, teachers will need to figure out what those gaps are while also implementing a new CCSS based curriculum.

PMI offers a solution to address these with free, open-source, vertically articulated course content by grade level, and soon by domain.  The PMI curriculum is a K-12 course sequence aligned to CCSS.  It was written by teachers, for teachers and offers greater flexibility than a textbook approach since all course materials are editable by anyone.  This content is currently listed by grade level, but soon, the New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) will be creating courses by domain.  These courses will identify all units needed to understand a domain (for instance fractions), and teachers will use embedded formative assessment questions to quickly determine where to begin instruction.  These domain-based courses are coming soon!

Tags: News