When working with teachers, I frequently tell them that there are no teachers who feel like they have enough time to teach all of their grade level Common Core math standards. I state it like it is fact, but then one day I realized that I was just making a big assumption.
So, I created a quick two question survey and shared it on Twitter.
Hey math teachers who use the Common Core State Standards, please answer this two question survey. Please RT. https://t.co/nTljSGvBfa #MTBoS pic.twitter.com/T55JzcGfNa
— Robert Kaplinsky (@robertkaplinsky) March 24, 2017
I asked educators to respond to two questions:
- Do you have enough time to teach all of your grade level Common Core math standards?
- What grade level do you teach?
Below I have the data further broken down by grade levels. For ease of displaying data, I excluded people who stated that they taught compacted courses (for example 8th grade and Algebra in one year) or were not a classroom teacher. You can download the complete data set if you’d like to do your own analysis.
The graph may be misleading because it is just showing percentages. For example, kindergarten and 3rd grade appear to be relatively high, but when you look at the number of teachers who responded, it’s unclear as to whether the sample size is representative of the larger population.
- Kinder – 33% (1 of 3)
- 1st – 0% (0 of 1)
- 2nd – 0% (0 of 4)
- 3rd – 50% (5 of 10)
- 4th – 19% (5 of 26)
- 5th – 18% (7 of 40)
- 6th – 15% (8 of 53)
- 7th – 9% (5 of 58)
- 8th – 21% (12 of 57)
- Alg I – 24% (8 of 34)
- Geo – 20% (5 of 25)
- Alg II – 9% (2 of 22)
- Int I – 18% (2 of 11)
- Int II – 20% (2 of 10)
- Int III – 0% (0 of 6)
- Pre-Calculus – 0% (0 of 1)
- AP Calculus – 0% (0 of 1)
- How long are people teaching math every day? (Mrs. R said she she had enough time because she has 90 minutes for math every day. Nickolas Corley and Josh Zagorski also said yes because they each have 80 minutes for math every day)
- How long are the school years? One person emailed me to say that she said yes because students were in class for 210 days
- How is each person interpreting what it means to teach their grade level standards?
- Do people interpret “teach[ing] all of your grade level Common Core math standards” as teaching everything in the textbook?
- Are teachers with custom curriculum more likely to say they have enough time?
What are you thinking? What questions do you still have? What would you like to ask teachers to get more clarity on this question? Please let me know in the comments.
I teach 6th grade in NJ. I can say that I am able to “cover” all of the standards in my school year (180 days, 70 minute periods). However I do not feel all of the standards are taught thoroughly enough for the students to lreally learn them. I always feel rushed. If I find students need longer to learn a topic, I have to keep moving.
Yeah, it really does get at the heart of what it means to teach or “cover” a standard.
In order to decide if you are adequately covering standards, teachers need to be able to unpack the state standers and the meaning of each standard. Teachers also need to understand how the mathematical practices relate to each standard. I know very few schools who give their teachers the time and training on how to do this. Therefore, I would say the first question that needs to be asked is “do you feel you truly understand each and every standard you are expected to teach at yore grade level?” Also I think it’s vital that teachers understand the standards in the grade above and below your grade level.
This is so true but complex. I *used* to think my answer was yes. However, the more I learn, the more aware I am of how much I still don’t know. By that definition, I’m not sure I “truly understand” any grade level’s standards.
The question is, when do we make a change? For the data to show us what it does, you’d think changes would be in order. As a teacher with 24 years of experience, I truly feel like we’re doing our students and teachers a disservice. So how can we create change that supports our students?
I strongly relate to this response.
Hi. I love reading all the comments. I, too, struggle to find time for everything. What I find myself wondering is how the responses might change if you asked whether teachers had enough time to teach their “students” instead of their “standards”.
I teach third graders and often need to teach things that aren’t on my grade level list. I also have students who arrive proficient in some standards. I want to teach them something as well.
Here, for me, is where time becomes the tyrant. I need to determine strengths and decide where and what to build and there aren’t enough hours for that. Especially in math.
I have great workshop models for meeting individual needs in reading and writing. I’d love to know if anyone had cracked that code when it comes to math. But since I mostly lack meaningful endeavors in which to embed the skills, it has so far eluded me.
Wondering if you have heard of Building Thinking Classrooms by Peter Liljedahl? I’ve been helping teachers implement the practices in this book. Our PDSA (Plan, Do, Study, Act) cycles have shown teachers what is possible once kids are actually doing the thinking and how turning institutional norms upside down with these practices can be a strong structure for developing the kind of thinking needed for a deep shift towards Problem-based learning. My dream is to get Kyle Pierce, Jon Orr, Graham Fletcher, Kristen Acosta, Berkeley Everett, Steve Wyborney, Dan Finkel, Tracy Zager, Robert Kaplinsky, Dan Meyer, Fawn Nguyen, and Peter Liljedahl in the same space to put all the pieces together. Rich tasks built around big ideas instead of granular standards…Low floor, high ceiling, highly visual tasks that can bring context to the math so that the concepts launched are fully accessible. Opportunities to extend the thinking that are progressively more complex and connect the ideas (what kids learn collectively from one problem or task they can use to access the next problem or task.) Regular access to station/center rotations so students can build fluency through cooperative games, digital platforms that collect actionable data, activities using manipulatives, and time created for teachers to sit beside small groups of students for just in time instruction or time to provide access to exploring concepts that are still emerging. Create a highly visual teacher’s guide (with videos) so that we can build our own content knowledge as we provide opportunities for students to do the same. Oh…in a perfect world.
P.S. Let’s make sure Zaretta L. Hammond, Sunil Sinigh, and Rachel Lambert are at the table keeping equity and access our primary goal, while rehumanizing the entire process.
An interesting follow up question would ask students and teachers whether students had enough time to learn all the grade level common core standards.
Thanks for the leadership you provide math teachers Robert
Tell me more about what you expect to see in the gap between asking people about teaching and learning?
I would like to have a go at that. I think that going through the content then testing them is different to the students actually being able to continuously apply their learning in a variety of ways over the course of the school year (and beyond!). I think that is what is meant by “teaching” as opposed to “learning”? My experience with primary age students is, if they are not “using it” they ‘lose it”. Interestingly this doesn’t apply as much to concepts that require active, practical experiences such as measurement, as they tend to have experiences in real life eg cooking. Where it starts to go pear shaped IMO is with number when algorithms and other procedures start appearing. So for example, they may ‘learn division”, do well in a test but lose the skill when they “move on”. This is why I have been so worried about the way we teach Maths and applaud all of the teachers who are looking for ways to bring Mathematical thinking/Numeracy into our classrooms as naturally as we do with Literacy.
45 years after high school in New York I am still traumatized by learning trig in 45 minutes. I walked out of each class not understanding the process not building the base to learn the building blocks and thank god the regents were stolen that year or i might never have graduated high school. I had recurring bad dreams for years.
As a teacher who has taught 6-11 I 100% agree with you. We are “touch and go” teaching! I would rather teach fewer concepts and allow them to soak in, and really allow students to explore those concepts. It is sad really…because I know it starts at the elementary level and we just skim till the end.
Also, read the book “FOCUS” by Mike Schmoker. A great read for this type of argument. 🙂
I think the problem lies in the fact that most educators look at their standards as a checklist of items to teach. Once you do some in depth analysis into the CCSS-M Standards you realize that many of them overlap. Teachers should be working to make connections between and across concepts instead of teaching procedures in isolation.
Agreed. As I’ve mentioned in some previous blog posts (here’s one: http://robertkaplinsky.com/open-letter-writers-future-math-standards/), the standards themselves are very challenging to read which means that this is not happening everywhere.
Yes. This is what my 5th grade team and I have done. We look at what kind of questions our SBAC exams ask of our students and focus on the standards that are covered more in the exam. Like you said some standards overlap so those chapters that overlap, we skip. Even then, we are racing through our text. The problem I have is challenging my higher level math class. I have given them PBL activities, online activities, and they are whipping through them with great accuracy. I will be starting hyperdocs and digital breakout games to try and challenge them. The difficulty part on me is organizing it all for my blended learning rotations.
Fernand, have you checked out openmiddle.com? You might find resources for your higher level math class there that would be a great fit.
Great discussion…. another complication is grading. How might scoring (report cards) discern the difference between reporting knowledge within the “coverage” as in true opportunity to learn versus not showing mastery of the standard(s) when coverage is at risk…?
Yes, Tiffani! Too many times math is presented as sets skills that must be built upon vs as conceptual understandings that are interconnected. When we understand concepts deeply, we can often “re-invent” or intuit the procedures to problem solve.
We need to do a much better job of connecting standards (as do our curriculum materials). I love what Jo Boaler & Cathy Williams have done with the concept maps in the Youcubed curriculum and now for the CA CCSSM revisions. Check it out at youcubed.org in the new California section.
Good topic. Of course we don’t have time. I was hired a month after the school year started and the state exam is given 3 weeks before the end of the school year, but there is so much testing in every subject during the last six weeks of school that really the school year was toast by mid-April. For me, this meant trying to cover everything in the book (which matched the standards) between mid-September and mid-April with lower socioeconomic level students who needed work on how to add fractions of different denominators and were utterly confused by percents and any kind of word problem…in ALGEBRA 1! Between their disciplinary issues, absences, cellphone obsession and general disdain for anything requiring concentration, we had to spend the first two months on the first chapter (pre-algebra review) then race through as much of the remaining concepts as possible. My department chair said “Just do the best you can.” Of course that’s what I did, and it’s what I told the kids as well. The entire school had numerous kids who refused to do any work whatsoever, and many of them were assigned to me. A wise veteran teacher told me, “Ernesto, the bottom line is that no one can force any student who has no interest in being here to participate and learn. With the top students, I’ve found that ANYTHING works. With the lowest level students, NOTHING works, and if it does, it only works until the novelty wears off. Welcome to the trenches. There’s generally not enough time for the ones who want to learn and for the ones who don’t, an eternity wouldn’t make a difference.”
Hi Ernesto. It certainly sounds like there are a lot of additional factors which make it difficult to fit all the standards into one year for you.
Regarding the advice from the wise veteran teacher, I’d be really careful with it. Mentally grouping students into “top” and “lowest” can get really problematic, because many of those groupings are artificial, and with the right interventions, a “lowest” student can achieve much more than people expect.
Ernesto, I would recommend checking out Jo Boaler’s Mathematical Mindsets. Assigning Competence in a lesson so as to level the social playing field while delivering high quality tasks that are low floor, high ceiling, can do wonders for the “top” & “lowest” students. 😉
Yes they can, but what are the right interventions? When does a teacher have time to plan that, sponsor clubs, continue their education, attend meetings, love and support their own family? I forgot self care.
This is a great topic. I definitely do not feel we (middle school teachers) have enough time to adequately teach the standards. I would love some data to present to our administration that would convince them that 45 minutes per day is not enough time to teach for mastery of the standards. Or at least, some kind of data that shows a relationship (if there is one) between number of minutes spent in math class and students’ success on standardized assessments. I work in a district that focuses on ELA much more than math, with double periods in 6th grade of ELA, and reading interventionalists, etc., but not the same support or time for math.
Hi Chris-
I’m in the same boat and desperate for that very same information! We (middle school) moved from 60 minutes of math instruction last year to 42 minutes this year. My school administrator is saying he KNOWS the data will tank and we can show higher administration this to fight our battle and gain back lost minutes next year. The trouble with that thinking is that these current students lose big time. Is that data out there?
I am fairly sure of two things:
– Data like you’re looking for does not exist.
– If it did exist, it would be subject to so many other variables that it could mean anything.
For example, to actually get meaningful data, you’d have to have a VERY large number of students who were randomly assigned to have either fewer or more minutes. You’d also have to control for other factors as well, such as socioeconomic status, other intervention programs that they might be using, textbooks, etc.
So, yeah, not going to find that.
And perhaps more sadly, even if it did exist, I’m not sure that people would see if and actually change things.
We have two middle schools in our district. For years at the 6th grade level, we had 60 minute math periods in one building and 45 minute math periods in the other. On standardized tests the students in the building with the longer math periods out performed the 6th graders with shorter math classes every year for 12 years. Even with that data, I could not convince our district administration that we needed to increase the time for math across the middle schools. In fact, in order to implement a time for tier 2 intervention all classes in both buildings were cut to 44 minutes. Finally last year, with math scores declining, it was decided that a change needed to be made. The voices of our math teachers were finally heard and this year we have a double period, 88 minutes each day, for math at the 6th and 7th grade levels. We are excited to have the time and looking forward to our testing results.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I can see how you would come to that conclusion. While it certainly feels intuitive that more time would result in more learning. I wonder if other factors could play a role as that would be hard to pull out in the data.
My fellow teacher finished the program since January, I don’t know if the students finished too!!!
Robert, thanks for the survey and the results. I see something very significant in the results. I’ve taught Algebra 2 for years and I’ve never felt like the was adequate time to cover all the standards. Partially because of this, I am switching to geometry. And I will infer from your results that teachers are twice as happy teaching geometry as they are Algebra 1 or 2. So I see very significant info in your results.
Aside from the number of standards, I think many of the standards are too vague. So when my colleagues interpret the standards, they just go back to a mile wide and an inch deep. To me, there is too much focus on exposing students to every topic and not enough emphasis on rich applications nor is there enough time for kids to digest new material before they are tested in it.
Algebra is a race and there are only a few winners. And I’m not really very happy that there is so much emphasis on the abstract and not nearly enough emphasis on the practical applications. We teach kids as though everyone might one day be a mathematician and most won’t. And with our current system we discourage many who might have been.
I just spent a few hours with a bright young 11 year old who told me that she hated math. How does one get to hate math when they are only 11? And there are plenty of high schoolers who are already traumatized by math when they get to Algebra 2.
Thanks Michael. I can hear your frustration in your writing. Somehow we’ve lost our way and desperately need to find it.
I’m not sure you can infer that Geo teachers are twice as happy as Algebra 1 or 2 teachers based on the fact that it is both a small sample and not very representative, but it is a talking point.
Thanks for listening Robert. I agree with your take on my inference.
True, some students are ready for the standards, while others are not. I truly believe that we need to level students, not according to age or grade, but according to aptitude. Standards also need more clarification as to whether it is an introductory concept or a mastery concept. Overall, teachers and students seem stressed and I do not see our results improving.
This is a slippery slope Alicia. It’s human nature to group and generalize, yet the reality is that no matter how granular the groups become, there will continue to be additional differences.
I would love for you to survey common core math teachers about how much time they have to teach, as I’ve been trying to convince my district (for years) that our kids should have math for 2 periods a day. Most of the other districts around us block math, but I only have 48 minutes a day x 178 days. I get my standards covered, some very briefly, and not thoroughly enough for students to retain the information well. Also, I can’t seem to fit in any review of previous topics.
Ok, I tweeted it out. You can check out the results: https://twitter.com/robertkaplinsky/status/1073359380685324288
As an math instructional coach, I encourage the elementary teachers I support to focus on development of 3 big ideas: place value understanding, properties of operations, and the inverse relationships among the operations rather than looking at the standards as a checklist of items to be covered. I also suggest that 65-85% of math instructional time is spent in the priority clusters recommended by https://achievethecore.org/category/774/mathematics-focus-by-grade-level and remind teachers that our standards are end of year objectives and “mastery by March” is not expected. It seems when we shift our focus to development of these big ideas, the operations then become a vehicle to build these understandings during the year and the ability to “perform” the operations becomes a by-product of these larger understandings. It’s a work in progress with our goal being for individual students to build on and progress in their understanding throughout the year. I also emphasis the importance of truly knowing how students need to demonstrate understanding at each grade level and “staying in your lane” as far as your grade level standards. Having an awareness of the progression of the standards to support prior knowledge and knowing where students will be going next is also a critical piece. (Thank you Graham Fletcher for your progressions videos). My last few gems, that I seem to say over and over again are “Our STANDARDS are our guiding document and our curriculum is a RESOURCE. There is no perfect curriculum and we will always need to adapt or supplement to meet the needs of our students.” And “When you go to a buffet, do you eat everything at the buffet? Or do you choose the best bits? Our curriculum is the buffet. You need to pick and choose the best parts because you can’t do (or eat) it all.” This approach is not perfect and is constantly evolving as I further my own understanding. I am curious how the teachers I work with would respond to your question.
I love this! In Downey we said the same thing: “Our job is to teach the standards. The textbook is a resource we can use to teach it. If you find other resources that might be more useful to teach a standard, choose the best one.”
I also love your buffet metaphor. Perfect! I’ll have to remember that one.
Yes, Graham’s progression videos are strangely amazing and captivating in a way I haven’t figured out how to articulate. They certainly helped me make connections I was missing.
It sounds like you’re doing a great job supporting your teachers. Way to go, Tiffany.
I might have a prayer of adequately teaching all the standards by the actual end of the school year, but not a chance of doing it by March SBAC testing. I feel like I do a pretty good job of teaching related standards in concert,making connections between them, and relating it all to the “big ideas,” but it still feels overwhelming and rushed this time of year. (3rd grade, 60 minutes a day for math).
Yeah, it’s always seemed weird to me that students are assessed about 4/5 of the way through the year.
Hi there – I am shocked (SHOCKED, I tell you!) to see that 25% of your respondents feel there is enough time to teach the standards. But maybe the standards don’t equal the textbook. Virginia is not a Common Core state, so we have our own standards called the Standards of Learning (or SOL, which pretty much sums it up for the students). I have figured out that I need to give kids a solid understanding up to Chapter 10 in a 13-chapter Algebra book for them to succeed in Algebra 2–which comes after a year of Geometry, so everyone’s a little fuzzy. They start at the material in Ch. 10, and everyone’s doing their best to remember Alg 1. If I can get beyond that, it’s gravy. And now that I am trying to teach problem-solving and resilience and independent-thinking instead of mindless rule-following, it’s almost moot–not moot in the sense of ignoring where the kids need to get, but moot in terms of thinking of it in these stratified ways. We have had 45-50 minute classes in the past and are moving to 60-minute classes next year, which is very exciting. More time to ponder, not drill.
Yeah, I was also pretty shocked 17.5% felt there was enough time. I will say that some of them reported having 90+ minutes of math a day, and that was not something I had considered.
Definitely do not have enough time. I teach 8th-grade math and unfortunately, I feel like I teach grades 5-8 because the retention of fractions, decimals, and integers operations is so low. How can I expect students to solve equations with rational coefficients if they can’t remember how to perform operations with fractions or cannot remember that multiplying or dividing two negatives gives me a positive? I guess the latest news rumbling is our curriculum director hinted that we would be swinging back to having about 10 key standards this coming school year, instead of 30…which is the way it should be.
I’m sorry, but if students have done fractions in 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th grades…they SHOULD be experts at them by the time they get to 8th! Unfortunately, they retain NOTHING! This is the other issue. Students may be covering a topic for 3 years in a row, but still not mastering it. So we see a clear difference between “covering” the standards and students mastering or learning them. I could probably cover all the standards, but what good is it. I have high school teachers upset at me that their students don’t know how to do integer operations. My reply is, “You think I don’t know that? What do you think we’ve been working on—basket weaving?” I’ve honestly spent a month at the beginning of the year working on integer operations and the result is the same…the students who knew it at the beginning still know it and the students who didn’t know it, still don’t know it…no matter HOW LONG you work with them. Again, it’s a mastery issue. Sorry to go on a venting rant there.
It’s a super complex issue to unpack. I definitely feel your pain. I think that years of emphasizing procedures over conceptual understanding and rushing to teach topics have left many students with weak foundational skills. It’s a huge problem. Definitely contributing to it is that we require so many standards to be taught that we can’t go deep enough into them to teach them well.
This year 2020-2021 is especially challenging for standards. We use our time for the “focus standards” (achievethecore.org) but classes are only about 38 minutes of instructional time due to cleaning between classes. I teach 6th grade and this year we had to include some 5th grade standards they did not get to last year. I think that will be the case for a number of years. I worry more about connections between and across standards and grades instead of “covering them”. Always so much to consider, learn, and grow for the teachers and students.
Yes, definitely a very challenging year. It could be rocky for a while with gaps in understandings based on expectations. Hope people slow down.
I wonder how other schools and states are teaching math at the elementary level. More specifically, do you have elementary teachers who are math certified and know how to make connections and watch the crossover from standard to standard? I feel like the consensus I have received locally is that we do not. We have elementary teachers who are more ELA certified and I am sure do a fantastic job in that arena but admit to feeling like they just “cover” or “present” what is in the book in regards to math. Professional development is provided at times to try to bridge the gap but as stated in many posts above, basically there is only so much time in a day. I wish for the FINANCIAL FAIRIES to provide for more math teachers for our young learners 🙂
It’s worth considering that I had a degree in math from UCLA and with more perspective, I didn’t even know how to make connections from standard to standard because no one ever taught me about the connections either. It’s a huge challenge.
I teach in alternative HS.in Georgia My students are typically struggling with math and have big gaps in their knowledge. We have 50 min each day Mon-Thu students are expected to work independently on Fridays. I think there is not enough time to teach all Geomerty standards. Some of the standards have priority, others I am glad if students get exposed to.
Everyone recognizes learning was interrupted during the pandemic yet nothing has been changed as far as the standards we are required to cover. Like many of the comments above, I teach students who arrive in my 7th grade class with no clear understanding of many foundational concepts because they were not taught (or taught well) during those COVID year/s. It was really noticeable with last year’s 7th graders. Why haven’t the “math people” who set these standards taken this into account and adjusted for a few years until these students catch up? Let’s get that group mentioned above (Steve W., Sunil S., Graham F, etc) and “fix” our math system. Their insights and humanizing of math would be refreshing. And then maybe kids will start to appreciate and — gasp — enjoy or even love — the subject.
Unfortunately, changing state standards is a much, much more complex process than bringing together a few people and having them suggest something different. I can empathize with your experiences and wish there was an easier way to make changes.