Standards, Standards, Everywhere

My group had numbers and operations and the associated standards. I found the NCTM standards/expectations for numbers and operations were pretty general as they covered 6 - 8 in general terms. There were a total of seven general standards for three grade levels. These were:

• work flexibly with fractions, decimals, and percents to solve problems;
• compare and order fractions, decimals, and percents efficiently and find their approximate locations on a number line;
• develop meaning for percents greater than 100 and less than 1;
• understand and use ratios and proportions to represent quantitative relationships;
• develop an understanding of large numbers and recognize and appropriately use exponential, scientific, and calculator notation;
• use factors, multiples, prime factorization, and relatively prime numbers to solve problems;
• develop meaning for integers and represent and compare quantities with them. 

In deciphering the above standards, I found action verbs being utilized such as, work, use, and develop. As one can see they are very general, but point to the overall concepts that students should know and demonstrate before going on to high school.

As I viewed the Common Core and CMP standards, I found they were more difficult to decipher. For example, for the number system in the common core standards, there were broad headings like "Apply and extend previous understandings of numbers to the system of rational numbers." After the heading there are more specific objectives or benchmarks for the student to achieve.

In the CMP standards, there were focused objectives for Number and Operation goals. It also had guided objectives in relation to standards and the texts being used for the material. In my middle school classroom, we are using Connected Math and I have found it user friendly and comprehensive. It breaks down the standards into daily student objectives.

Overall, I found the National Standards to be broad concepts and Common Core and CMP standards more focused. It was like a "funnel effect" for the standards, as I got to CMP, they were more focused and deliberate to daily or lesson objectives.