What Does it Mean to Use the SFUSD Math Core Curriculum?
What does it mean to use the Core Curriculum?
- Plan instruction using the SFUSD Scope and Sequence – for the year, and within units.
- Address the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS-M).
- Design classroom experiences so students have opportunities for discourse, to interact meaningfully with their peers, and to engage in Standards for Mathematical Practice (SMPs).
- All students experience the scope of mathematics for their grade by the end of the year.
- There is a balance of conceptual, procedural, and application within units.
- Conceptual understanding precedes procedures and algorithms.
- Provide language scaffolds that don’t reduce the cognitive demand of the task.
- Provide manipulatives and math visual aids that help students access the math.
- Validate student use of home language.
- Use reengagement strategies.
- Reenforce growth mindset through giving experiences for students to learn from their mistakes and revise their thinking.
- Adjust instruction based on your wisdom of practice and student’s needs.
What does it mean to innovate while using the Core Curriculum?
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Clarifications About Use of the SFUSD Math Core Curriculum
Teachers are not expected to implement every component of every lesson exactly as written. Examples are:
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Unproductive practices discouraged by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
- Reteaching – spending entire lessons on last year’s content.
- Teaching procedures and algorithms before building conceptual understanding.
- Students only doing independent work, including work on individual worksheets without peer to peer discourse.
- Teaching from a textbook that predates the Common Core and therefore does not support the Standards for Mathematical Practice.
- Timed tests; introducing speed into mathematics undermines growth mindset and student agency.