Greetings from the staff of Investigations!

                  

We know that many of you are busy with the myriad of tasks that face all educators as another school year comes to a close. In the midst of the frenzy we hope that each of you takes a few moments to celebrate the work you do. Think about a conversation that gave you insight into a student's thinking; remember an accomplishment made by your class. It is equally important to remember experiences and situations that challenged you in new ways or confirmed that you are on the right track. As you pause for a moment, please remember the ways, subtle and not so subtle, that you positively impact the lives of children.  

                

We are particularly excited about this edition of our newsletter in that it features two new ventures: video clips that illustrate the CCSS's Standards for Mathematical Practice, and an on-line Investigations course. We hope these new endeavors support you in your work with Investigations.  

                

Enjoy your summer.                  

 

Karen Economopoulos and Keith Cochran

Co-Directors of Investigations in Number, Data, and Space

 

Myriam Steinback

Director of Investigations Workshops for Transforming Mathematics

We have some exciting news! We are expanding our professional development offerings this Fall with the addition of our first online course: Implementing Investigations. The six-week course will run from October through December. Our target audience is anyone who has not attended any of our face-to-face workshops, is new to Investigations, or has been using it for just a year or two. The course will allow teachers to apply what they learn in their classrooms and be part of a professional learning community. Look for an email that registration is open this August.

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The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) include eight Standards for Mathematical Practice that "describe ways in which developing student practitioners of the discipline of mathematics increasingly ought to engage with the subject matter as they grow in mathematical maturity and expertise." (CCSSM, p. 8.) Before diving into issues around implementation and professional development, here are a few important ideas to consider:  

 

• Each Practice begins with the phrase "Mathematically proficient students..." They describe student behaviors.
• The Practices are not a checklist of isolated ideas, to be taught individually. A lesson generally involves several Practices, and different strategies for the same problem may involve different Practices.
• They are inextricably linked to the important grade level mathematical content that is unfolding each and every day. Spending Friday afternoon focusing on the Practices (e.g. "Math Practice Fridays") is not what the Standards envision.
• It's not enough to say "They're everywhere." Teachers and leaders have to be able to recognize and identify the Practices, to ensure that students are encountering and using the full range of them.

Learn more about the Math Practices, and how they are embedded in the fabric of Investigations.

Every session of the Investigations curriculum calls on students to make sense of mathematics; to reason and use what they know; and to communicate their thinking. The teacher, the student, and the curriculum each have a role to play in making such a classroom come to life.

 

• The curriculum presents tasks designed to focus on particular content standards and to foster the use of the Math Practices.
• Teachers use their knowledge of the math, their students, and the curriculum to implement tasks and to support students' use of the Math Practices.
• Students who are given the opportunity, can and do think mathematically. How they approach a problem impacts the Practices they use.

 

Successful implementation of the Standards for Mathematical Practice relies on the interaction of these three factors. A task might be rich and complex, but if students aren't ready for the ideas or it's taught very procedurally, it won't result in deep and varied use of the Practices. On the other hand, what can seem like a simple computation problem can blossom into a rich and interesting task, depending on how the teacher presents the problem and what students do with it.

 

What does it look like when elementary teachers and students work on tasks that focus on important mathematics and require the use of the Math Practices? Curriculum in the Classroom: The Math Practices includes videos of Investigations classrooms that exemplify Math Practices 1 and 6 in the elementary grades.   

 

New questions and answers have been added to our FAQs about Investigations and the CCSS.  

 

Also new: Newsletter Archives, with links to each of the newsletters sent, to date.