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Guest Post: Edward Cox on the Common Core

In a mathematics class at a Southern California high school in the suburbs, students competed with each other to see who could assemble the largest rectangle from snap cubes holding to the golden ratio.

Nogales High School Algebra 2 teacher John Cox watched his summer school students outperform their classmates even after they had surpassed the required dimensions in the analytical problem they had been given.

“They were just doing it on their own, it was hard to stop them,” Cox said.

Teachers across California are adjusting to new teaching standards called the Common Core Standards which focuses on analytical thinking and real life application of mathematics. Although the state adopted the standards in 2010, California Governor Jerry Brown has funneled funds into the program in this year’s budget for implementation from 2014-2015.

The state’s investment in teacher training, technology and new books in the shift to the new standards will trickle down to mathematics and language arts classrooms. Although Cox acknowledges many teachers are unfamiliar and even suspicious  of the oncoming changes, he said he to shift to a more student oriented teaching approach.

Questions that fall under the Common Core Standards resemble free response questions, Cox said. For example, he asked his class to design a fund-raising game for the Associated Student Body  that would turn a profit. The game consisted of finding the diameter of a disc to toss into a rectangular plain that would result in the student winning 40% of the time.

After three to four days testing measurements, students learned how to use the quadratic function to determine the appropriate size of the disc.

Implementation of Common Core will lead to a different approach to testing in addition to teaching. Instead of gauging students’knowledge through California Standardized Test booklets stocked with multiple choice questions,   Common Core will test students through technology.

Students will be able to manipulate graphs and drag answers on their computer screens during Common Core tests.

“(Common Core) is more project oriented instead of lecturing on all the different standards,” Cox said. “that’s the way I usually like to teach so for me it’s not a big deal.”

– Article originally written by Edward Cox on Education Matters

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