Reply to Why are people so upset about Common Core?

Forum Index » Schools and Education General Discussion

Reply to "Why are people so upset about Common Core?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]PP again -- more importantly, I think it is enough for a 3rd grader to just demonstrate she knows that 1/3 = 2/6    If the goal is to be able to understand equivalent fractions, I don't think there's a lot of value added by requiring kids to explain, using words, WHY 1/3 - 2/6, as long as they are able to say that 1/3 = 2/6.   And 4/8 = 1/2 etc.[/quote]

I'm pretty sure this is the first post on this thread that actually makes a complaint about something that is part of the Common Core.  I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on this.  Can you tell me why you wouldn't want your third grader to be expected to be able to explain this concept in words or visuals?  What do you see as the downsides of teaching this skill, or the advantages of skipping this skill?[/quote]

I'm the PP you are responding to - and I have also been posting here quite frequently ... I am the teacher who greatly supports Common Core.

I just think that requiring kids to explain, using words,  how they know that 1/3 = 2/6th in third grade, isn't very useful, and is in fact difficult.   I don't think the Common Core standards requires kids to do this, but I did see it as a sample question on the PARCC.

http://www.parcconline.org/samples/mathematics/grade-3-mathematics-field

"Type a fraction different than 3/4 that also represents the fractional part of the field...... and explain why the two fractions are equal..."

I think it is hard to explain why 3/4 = 6/8 and is not really necessary.  I'm very good at math but I would find it hard to explain why 3/4 = 6/8, except by saying that I divided the numerator and denominator by 2, but that doesn't really explain WHY that creates an equivalent fraction.

Explaining in visuals would be OK -- look at the problem given at the link -- if you have 3/4 shaded, and then cut every part in half, you would then have 6/8 shaded.  But saying "3/4 pieces were shaded, then I drew a line down each part  and that created 6 out of 8 parts shaded -- is a lot of words, but doesn't really add anything to the meaning or demonstrate understanding of the concept.

I think it is hard to explain some math concepts using words, especially when you are only in 3rd grade.

If you can give me a good example of how a third grader should respond to the problem I linked to, please do.  Remember 3rd graders are 8 or 9 years old and not all of them can write well.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics