Over
the past several months, teachers and administrators have worked
together to define a clear vision for math and literacy in the School
District of the Menomonie Area. While recent debates across the country
often include rhetoric focused on school accountability, standardized
assessments, and the common core standards, how many people actually
have a clear understanding of what we are trying to teach our children?
In the SDMA, we have worked hard to summarize the answer to this
question in clear terms so that our school district’s focus for both
math and literacy can be a vision shared by parents, educators,
students, and community members.
In the
area of math, the three main pillars of what we are teaching our
students in grades K-12 include Procedural Skills and Fluency,
Conceptual Understanding, and Real World Applications. In addition to
teaching students basic math facts and calculations, instruction now
includes a greater emphasis on applying those skills and gaining a
better understanding of numerical relationships. This is a bit of a
shift from traditional math instruction that used to have a greater
emphasis on facts and calculations, with less focus on conceptual
understanding and application. Our school district has already made a
lot of progress in this area and, this year, teachers in our elementary
schools are using a new curriculum resource that provides for more rigor
and greater consistency in all classrooms across the school district.
What
does it mean for students in the Menomonie Area to be literate? The main
pillars of literacy in our school district include Reading, Writing,
Word Study (spelling, vocabulary, etc.), as well as Listening and
Speaking. Like math, our teachers not only help our students learn the
basic mechanics of reading, writing, listening, and speaking, but they
also emphasize the importance of applying these skills to real world
situations. Instead of a more traditional approach of teaching these
skills primarily in separate, somewhat isolated lessons, current
practices spiral literacy learning opportunities across curricular
areas, while using resources relevant to student interests.
With
only a finite amount of instructional time and other resources, we need
to make a conscious decision for what our students will need to best
prepare them for their futures. In both literacy and math, it is
important that we understand the importance of teaching our children
skills for critical thinking and effectively applying the basic
mechanics.
Learning
basic skills is still as important as it ever has been, but continued
advances in technology and the continued evolution of our society has
reduced the emphasis that we
have for some skills (ie. spending weeks practicing long division
algorithms) and has now placed a higher priority on reasoning and
application.
Should
school stakeholders have any questions, concerns, or suggestions
regarding math and literacy instruction in our school district, I invite
you to visit the Administrative Service Center on Pine Avenue or
contact me at 715-232-1642. More information about our schools can be
found on the school district website (www.sdmaonline.com) and on Twitter (www.twitter.com/sdmaonline).
Acknowledgement:
Much of the work on the vision for math and literacy for the School
District of the Menomonie Area was completed by SDMA Director of
Instruction Brian Seguin, SDMA Math Coach Michelle Dupree, and SDMA
Literacy Coach Tera Ellison.
The graphic below demonstrates the math and literacy visions in the SDMA.