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Prioritizing Math Standards

By Michele Carney @ Boise State University Several national level documents focused on educational recovery from COVID impacts recommend ‘prioritizing’ math standards to allow more time for ‘just-in-time’ teaching to address unfinished learning (e.g., see Strategy #3 ). The following brief presents a few important considerations for educators and/or districts depending on their approach to this work. What is the target of prioritization?   Eliminating standards   The elimination of particular standards from a grade-level or course is a common target/approach to prioritizing standards. This often involves teachers determining which standards are most critical for students to learn at a particular grade level. Oftentimes data analysis and geometry standards become the target of elimination (see below why this might be problematic). This is perhaps the least time-and-expertise-intensive approach to prioritizing standards. However, the Idaho standards are carefully designed and se...
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Supporting Incomplete Math Learning in the General Education Classroom

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As students have returned to school in the fall of 2021, we are recognizing the variety of ways in which students have been impacted by the pandemic. One commonplace issue surrounds students’ incomplete learning of grade-level mathematics standards over the past year and half. The following brief has some recommendations for supporting students with incomplete math learning in the general education classroom. Recommendation #1: Stick to grade level standards. Educators may be naturally inclined to try to identify the mathematics from prior grade levels where students have ‘holes’ in their understanding, and to start instruction here. We call this just-in-case instruction. In the general education classroom, we recommend starting instruction with grade level standards and scaffolding back to areas of incomplete learning. We call this just-in-time instruction.  Recommendation #2: Use just-in-time instruction to catch up on incomplete knowledge. Just-in-time instruction can mean a...
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