Standards ensure that all students in Wyoming receive a uniform and consistent mathematical education and are prepared for success in and out of the classroom. Therefore, the 2012 Wyoming Mathematics Content and Performance Standards should:
The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics is a state-led effort to establish a single set of clear educational standards that states can share and voluntarily adopt. Including the Common Core State Standards into the 2012 Wyoming Mathematics Content and Performance Standards prepares Wyoming students to be competitive on the national and world stage. These standards are a set of specific, rigorous expectations that build students’ conceptual understanding, mathematical language, and application of processes and procedures coherently from one grade to the next so all students will be prepared for post-secondary experiences. The use of technology is expected throughout all levels of the standards. The focus areas for each grade level and conceptual category establish a depth of knowledge as opposed to a breadth of knowledge across multiple standards in each grade level or content area. The Standards for Mathematical Practices describe the essential ways of thinking and habits of mind that are the hallmark of a mathematically literate and informed citizen.
The Common Core State Standards for mathematics stress both conceptual understanding and procedural skills to ensure students learn and can apply the critical information needed to succeed at each level. This creates a vertical articulation where the mathematics learned in elementary school provides the foundation for the study of statistics, probability, ratio and proportion, geometry, and algebra in middle school. This is, in turn, the bedrock upon which the knowledge needed for success in colleges and careers can be developed in the high school.
The 2011 Wyoming Mathematics Content and Performance Standards, which include the Common Core State Standards for mathematics, define what students should understand and be able to do in their study of mathematics. They do not dictate curriculum or teaching methods. Teachers ensure students achieve standards by using a variety of instructional strategies based on their students’ needs.
The Content and Performance Standards are divided into two areas of equal importance:
These statements help teachers judge where students are performing in relation to the standards. They describe student performance at various levels of proficiency. To consider a standard as “met”, students are required to perform at the “proficient” level. A general definition of each level is provided below.
The Standards for Mathematical Practice bring the complexities of the world into focus and give schema for grappling with authentic and meaningful problems. The Practices define experiences that build understanding of mathematics and ways of thinking through which students develop, apply, and assess their knowledge:
The Standards for Mathematical Practice establish habits of mind and empower students to become mathematically literate and informed citizens.
Algorithmic knowledge is no longer sufficient when preparing our students to become globally competitive. The knowledge of good practitioners goes beyond algorithmic learning and allows them to picture the problem and the many roads that may lead to absolution. They realize that mathematics is applicable outside of the classroom and are confident in their ability to apply mathematical concepts to all aspects of life. The symbiotic nature of the Standards of Mathematical Practice allows students to deepen their understandings of mathematical concepts and cultivates their autonomy as mathematically literate and informed citizens. Employing mathematics as a means of synthesizing complex concepts and making informed decisions is paramount to success in all post-secondary endeavors.
Because of the importance of the Standards for Mathematical Practice, they were chosen to be the basis for the content level performance descriptors across all grades. The depth of understanding and the level and consistency with which students apply them will vary according to grade level appropriateness. When used in conjunction with standard level performance descriptors, they will provide an appropriate framework to determine a student’s level of mastery of the standards.
Each grade level in the K – 8 standards is prefaced with an explanation of instructional focus areas for that grade level. Each conceptual category in the high school standards is prefaced with an explanation of the implication of that category to a student’s mastery of mathematics. Making mathematical models is a Standard for Mathematical Practice, and specific modeling standards appear throughout the high school standards indicated by a star symbol (★). Additional mathematics that students should learn in order to take advanced courses such as calculus, advanced statistics, or discrete mathematics is indicated by a plus symbol (+). (Not required for all students).
Standards Implementation Timeline
Wyoming Department of Education Mathematics
Source: https://edu.wyoming.gov/downloads/standards/final-2012-math-standards.pdf
Mathematically proficient students start by explaining to themselves the meaning of a problem and looking for entry points to its solution. They analyze givens, constraints, relationships, and goals. They make conjectures about the form and meaning of the solution and plan a solution pathway rather than simply jumping into a solution attempt. They consider analogous problems, and try special cases and simpler forms of the original problem in order to gain insight into its solution. They monitor and evaluate their progress and change course if necessary. Older students might, depending on the context of the problem, transform algebraic expressions or change the viewing window on their graphing calculator to get the information they need. Mathematically proficient students can explain correspondences between equations, verbal descriptions, tables, and graphs or draw diagrams of important features and relationships, graph data, and search for regularity or trends. Younger students might rely on using concrete objects or pictures to help conceptualize and solve a problem. Mathematically proficient students check their answers to problems using a different method, and they continually ask themselves, “Does this make sense?” They can understand the approaches of others to solving complex problems and identify correspondences between different approaches.
Mathematically proficient students make sense of quantities and their relationships in problem situations. They bring two complementary abilities to bear on problems involving quantitative relationships: the ability to decontextualize—to abstract a given situation and represent it symbolically and manipulate the representing symbols as if they have a life of their own, without necessarily attending to their referents—and the ability to contextualize, to pause as needed during the manipulation process in order to probe into the referents for the symbols involved. Quantitative reasoning entails habits of creating a coherent representation of the problem at hand; considering the units involved; attending to the meaning of quantities, not just how to compute them; and knowing and flexibly using different properties of operations and objects.
Mathematically proficient students understand and use stated assumptions, definitions, and previously established results in constructing arguments. They make conjectures and build a logical progression of statements to explore the truth of their conjectures. They are able to analyze situations by breaking them into cases, and can recognize and use counterexamples. They justify their conclusions, communicate them to others, and respond to the arguments of others. They reason inductively about data, making plausible arguments that take into account the context from which the data arose. Mathematically proficient students are also able to compare the effectiveness of two plausible arguments, distinguish correct logic or reasoning from that which is flawed, and—if there is a flaw in an argument—explain what it is. Elementary students can construct arguments using concrete referents such as objects, drawings, diagrams, and actions. Such arguments can make sense and be correct, even though they are not generalized or made formal until later grades. Later, students learn to determine domains to which an argument applies. Students at all grades can listen or read the arguments of others, decide whether they make sense, and ask useful questions to clarify or improve the arguments.
Mathematically proficient students can apply the mathematics they know to solve problems arising in everyday life, society, and the workplace. In early grades, this might be as simple as writing an addition equation to describe a situation. In middle grades, a student might apply proportional reasoning to plan a school event or analyze a problem in the community. By high school, a student might use geometry to solve a design problem or use a function to describe how one quantity of interest depends on another. Mathematically proficient students who can apply what they know are comfortable making assumptions and approximations to simplify a complicated situation, realizing that these may need revision later. They are able to identify important quantities in a practical situation and map their relationships using such tools as diagrams, two-way tables, graphs, flowcharts and formulas. They can analyze those relationships mathematically to draw conclusions. They routinely interpret their mathematical results in the context of the situation and reflect on whether the results make sense, possibly improving the model if it has not served its purpose.
Mathematically proficient students consider the available tools when solving a mathematical problem. These tools might include pencil and paper, concrete models, a ruler, a protractor, a calculator, a spreadsheet, a computer algebra system, a statistical package, or dynamic geometry software. Proficient students are sufficiently familiar with tools appropriate for their grade or course to make sound decisions about when each of these tools might be helpful, recognizing both the insight to be gained and their limitations. For example, mathematically proficient high school students analyze graphs of functions and solutions generated using a graphing calculator. They detect possible errors by strategically using estimation and other mathematical knowledge. When making mathematical models, they know that technology can enable them to visualize the results of varying assumptions, explore consequences, and compare predictions with data. Mathematically proficient students at various grade levels are able to identify relevant external mathematical resources, such as digital content located on a website, and use them to pose or solve problems. They are able to use technological tools to explore and deepen their understanding of concepts.
Mathematically proficient students try to communicate precisely to others. They try to use clear definitions in discussion with others and in their own reasoning. They state the meaning of the symbols they choose, including using the equal sign consistently and appropriately. They are careful about specifying units of measure, and labeling axes to clarify the correspondence with quantities in a problem. They calculate accurately and efficiently, express numerical answers with a degree of precision appropriate for the problem context. In the elementary grades, students give carefully formulated explanations to each other. By the time they reach high school they have learned to examine claims and make explicit use of definitions.
Mathematically proficient students look closely to discern a pattern or structure. Young students, for example, might notice that three and seven more is the same amount as seven and three more, or they may sort a collection of shapes according to how many sides the shapes have. Later, students will see 7 × 8 equals the well remembered 7 × 5 + 7 × 3, in preparation for learning about the distributive property. In the expression x^2 + 9x + 14, older students can see the 14 as 2 × 7 and the 9 as 2 + 7. They recognize the significance of an existing line in a geometric figure and can use the strategy of drawing an auxiliary line for solving problems. They also can step back for an overview and shift perspective. They can see complicated things, such as some algebraic expressions, as single objects or as being composed of several objects. For example, they can see 5 – 3(x – y)^2 as 5 minus a positive number times a square and use that to realize that its value cannot be more than 5 for any real numbers x and y.
Mathematically proficient students notice if calculations are repeated, and look both for general methods and for shortcuts. Upper elementary students might notice when dividing 25 by 11 that they are repeating the same calculations over and over again, and conclude they have a repeating decimal. By paying attention to the calculation of slope as they repeatedly check whether points are on the line through (1, 2) with slope 3, middle school students might abstract the equation (y – 2)/(x – 1) = 3. Noticing the regularity in the way terms cancel when expanding (x – 1)(x + 1), (x – 1)(x^2 + x + 1), and (x – 1)(x^3 + x^2 + x + 1) might lead them to the general formula for the sum of a geometric series. As they work to solve a problem, mathematically proficient students maintain oversight of the process, while attending to the details. They continually evaluate the reasonableness of their intermediate results.
The Standards for Mathematical Practice describe ways in which developing student practitioners of the discipline of mathematics increasingly ought to engage with the subject matter as they grow in mathematical maturity and expertise throughout the elementary, middle and high school years. Designers of curricula, assessments, and professional development should all attend to the need to connect the mathematical practices to mathematical content in mathematics instruction.
The Standards for Mathematical Content are a balanced combination of procedure and understanding. Expectations that begin with the word "understand" are often especially good opportunities to connect the practices to the content. Students who lack understanding of a topic may rely on procedures too heavily. Without a flexible base from which to work, they may be less likely to consider analogous problems, represent problems coherently, justify conclusions, apply the mathematics to practical situations, use technology mindfully to work with the mathematics, explain the mathematics accurately to other students, step back for an overview, or deviate from a known procedure to find a shortcut. In short, a lack of understanding effectively prevents a student from engaging in the mathematical practices.
In this respect, those content standards which set an expectation of understanding are potential "points of intersection" between the Standards for Mathematical Content and the Standards for Mathematical Practice. These points of intersection are intended to be weighted toward central and generative concepts in the school mathematics curriculum that most merit the time, resources, innovative energies, and focus necessary to qualitatively improve the curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional development, and student achievement in mathematics.