Common Core Elevator Speech - Day 6

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5

Did you check out Steve's elevator speech on Day 5? Pretty awesome, right? Here is the second one he emailed me.

"Appealing to an audience that recognizes school math isn't working well enough."

Regardless of what you may think of the Common Core, you must recognize that school mathematics hasn’t been working for far too many students.  You’ve probably heard that the K–12 mathematics program in the United States has been aptly characterized in many rather uncomplimentary ways: underperforming, incoherent, fragmented, poorly aligned, unteachable, unfair, narrow in focus, skill-based, and, of course, “a mile wide and an inch deep.”  Most teachers are well aware that there have been far too many objectives for each grade or course, few of them rigorous or conceptually oriented, and too many of them misplaced as we prematurely ram far too much computation down too many throats. It’s not a pretty picture and helps to explain why so many teachers and students have been set up to fail and why we’ve created the need for much of the intervention that test results seem to require.

These are realities that the Common Core has been designed to fix. How? First, the new standards are common. No longer will publishers cater to a few large states and stuff their books with the union of fifty sets of demands. No longer will our assessments be developed by the lowest bidder and overwhelmingly comprised of low-level, multiple-choice items.

Instead, the prospects of a Common Core set of standards are for shorter, more web-based, better-focused instructional materials and for computer-adaptive, computer-delivered, and instantaneously-scorable constructed response-item assessments.  Second, ignore the misrepresentations and take heart in the fact that the Common Core standards are coherent. These standards replace the vagueness of strands (number, measurement, geometry, statistics, and algebra) with domains, clusters, and well-conceived grade-to-grade progressions of standards. Moreover, they are fair. Many procedures that we have come to teach at grade x, have been moved to grade x + 1, giving us all a chance to build prerequisite knowledge and slow down what has become a drag race through the curriculum. And, lastly, they are teachable. There are only about thirty standards—of varying sizes and depth—at each grade level, resulting in a far more manageable teaching load than the forty to fifty objectives per year that many of us now face.  If you care about your children, if you care about readiness for citizenship and the workplace, and if you care about our future leaders making informed decisions, you should be fighting for, not against, the Common Core.

~ Steve Leinwand

Again, I want to thank Steve for taking the time to prepare two awesome elevator speeches. Hopefully, they've inspired you as much as they've inspired me. Maybe you can use parts in your own elevator speech when the time presents itself. It's not too late to add your own in the comments. Tomorrow, I'll post the last and final elevator speech, which happens to be my two minute speech for my district. 

Common Care,
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Common Core Elevator Speech - Day 5

Day 1
Day 2
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Day 4

I have three more days of elevator speeches to share. Now would be a good time to say why I initiated this whole elevator speech series. I was asked by my district to give a 90 second presentation on rigorous mathematics standards. I will be giving this 90 second presentation on Monday at our district's State of the Schools breakfast where many community members, parents, board members, teachers, and administrators will be present. You know, all the stakeholders. In preparing those 90 seconds, I needed to push myself to come up with elevator speeches related to Common Core math standards and rigor. So Day 7 will be my 90 second elevator speech from the State of the Schools.

For Day 5 and Day 6, I'm honored to share two elevator speeches from Steve Leinwand. It was so cool to see an email from Steve in my Inbox, with him saying, "OK - challenge accepted!"

If you've followed my blog, you know I have great admiration for Steve and have been inspired by him numerous times. It won't surprise you that I thoroughly enjoy (and support) his first speech.

"Appealing to an audience that wants more for their children."

It’s only one of eight Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice, but we can change schools and change lives if we truly implement Mathematical Practice 3:  “Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.”  In many ways, these nine words may be the most important words in the entire Common Core effort.  We can’t expect students to construct viable arguments unless we ask them “why?” and “how do you know?” and “can you convince us?”  When we ask such questions we are laying the foundation for the reasoning and justifying that represent the thinking that schools need to develop in all students.  Similarly, we can’t expect students to critique the reasoning of others unless we create classrooms where student thinking is valued and students contribute to their own learning within communities of learners.  Moreover, this isn’t just mathematics, but what needs to happen in English language arts, social studies and science as well. So when one cuts through all of the misrepresentations and politics that surround the Common Core, these powerful nine words transcend our differences and capture what every parent and every citizen should be demanding from their schools and for their children.

~Steve Leinwand 

Thank you Steve for sharing your wisdom and fervor. I look forward to sharing your next elevator speech on Day 6.

Fervor,
819

[UPDATE]: Check out the audio/visual of Steve's elevator speech.

Common Core Elevator Speech - Day 4

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

When I started this idea of preparing an elevator speech about the Common Core, I figured I'd get as far as I can on my own. I wanted to stretch myself and avoid tapping into resources or my Jedi masters. It's day 4 and I find myself at that point where I need a pick-me-up. Who better to do that than Steve Leinwand and his super math gang of leaders at NCSM? All 2014 NCSM attendees received the following framework:

It's TIME: Themes and Imperatives for Mathematics Education. 

I figured I would snag a few lines from the section titled Support an Understanding of the Breadth and Depth of Mathematics Content Knowledge (found on pages 20-21). Today's elevator speech is is from the pros (all 15 writers):

The CCSSM promotes teaching few concepts, but teaching them in more depth, with deeper understanding as the goal. However, teachers must have a deep understanding of the content themselves to teach for deeper understanding.

Mathematics involves more than just recalling facts and performing routine procedures. Mathematics needs to be understood as an integrated collection of knowledge and skills, not as a series of discrete procedures. Mathematics must also be understood as connected to other disciplines and to the world in which we live. A technology- and information-based society requires citizens to be able to think, reason, and analyze. Knowing mathematics means being able to adapt and apply mathematical ideas to new situations and to a variety of problems.

You can find this on page 21. The framework is a quick read at 58 pages and appendices full of strategies and resources. Get your own copy, you can't have mine.

It's TIME,
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