Making Minnesota Nice with the Standards of Mathematical Practice

Megan Schmidt

Math Specialist, St. Francis School District

MCTM Communications Committee

As members of the Minnesota mathematics community, it may be no mystery that the Gopher state opted out of adopting the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics. Experts involved in the 2010 decision cited teachers and students were thriving using Minnesota’s existing rigorous, college-ready math standards created in 2007 and did not see a benefit in making another change.

My district is on the verge of a new curriculum adoption which meant the entire month of May we juggled an influx of dozens of shiny textbooks, workbooks, and supplemental guides to help narrow our decision. While glancing through a high school geometry textbook, my colleague noticed that volume and surface area of many 3-D figure favorites were missing. The short answer to this problem was that those concepts are covered in middle school according to the common core state standards for mathematics and most, if not all, textbook samples are aligned to the standards that 43 out of 50 states have adopted. We were assured if we were to purchase, that the Minnesota aligned textbook would contain the necessary volume and surface area sections. But a bigger issue than misaligned resource samples is at play here.

Since Minnesota chose to go it alone in the standards arena, special attention needs to be paid by teachers and curriculum directors to whether textbooks and other resources align to the 2007 standards. At a glance, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the two sets of content standards – some advanced trigonometry and maybe logarithms. I can make many arguments for that Minnesota misses out on the national conversation involving the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. But there’s one place in particular in the standards document that Minnesota math teachers miss out on: The Standards for Mathematical Practice. These eight big ideas create a framework for teachers to help their students engage with mathematical content in meaningful ways.

The Standards for Mathematical Practice are the real change agents in the Common Core initiative. Yes, content standards are important, and there have been many important discussions about what content coverage is appropriate in school mathematics.   But moving a lesson on volume of prisms from 10th grade to 7th grade doesn’t facilitate the shift in teaching practice from worked examples of volume to allowing students to model these shapes, look at their structure and make viable arguments for how the volume should be calculated. The Minnesota standards require algebra in 8th grade but aren’t specific on whether it’s important for students to persevere through problems or when attending to precision is necessary. The Standards for Mathematical Practice make clear that how students interact with mathematics makes a difference in their understanding of mathematics. By dismissing the CCSSM entirely, math teachers in non-common core states miss out on valuable collaboration happening across the country on how these practice standards can improve teaching and learning mathematics.

I hope to challenge Minnesota’s mathematics teachers to learn about the Standards for Mathematical Practice and use them to help guide students in your classroom. For example, recently, Heinemann Publishing hosted a blog series on the practice standards featuring many hard hitters in math education such as Dan Meyer, Steve Leinwand, and Max Ray. They provide teachers with ways to encourage perseverance, modeling, precision, strategy, critique, and reasoning from students. Additionally, the Education Development Center has created a resource aimed at helping teachers implement the practice standards. Join with me in the conversation among teachers in Common Core states on Twitter (@veganmathbeagle) or on my blog (http://mathybeagle.com/).