Common Core Standards for High School Mathematics: A Quick-Start Guide

Amitra Schwols, Kathleen Demsey, & John Kendall, Series Editor

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About This Book

Smart implementation of the Common Core State Standards requires both an overall understanding of the standards and a grasp of their implications for planning, teaching, and learning. This quick-start guide provides a succinct, all-in-one look at

• The structure, terminology, and emphases of the Common Core mathematics standards at the high school level, including the areas that represent the most significant changes to business as usual.
• The meaning of the individual content standards, addressed by domain and cluster, within all six conceptual categories—Number and Quantity, Algebra, Functions, Geometry, and Statistics and Probability.
• How the content standards, practice standards, and designated modeling standards connect across domains, categories, grade bands, and traditional course boundaries to help students develop both deep conceptual understanding and functional, real-world application skills.

Here, mathematics teachers and teacher leaders will find information they need to begin adapting their courses and practices to ensure all students master the new and challenging material the standards present and graduate ready for college or career—updated with the new codes and referrals released in September 2012.

A practical lesson planning process to use with the Common Core standards, based on Classroom Instruction That Works, 2nd Ed., is included, along with three sample lessons.

Learn the Essentials of the Common Core

The grade-level and subject-specific quick-start guides in the Understanding the Common Core Standards series, edited by John Kendall, are designed to help school leaders and school staffs turn Common Core standards into coherent, content-rich curriculum and effective, classroom-level lessons.

See the book's table of contents and read excerpts.

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About the Authors

AMITRA SCHWOLS serves as a consultant at Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL). As an analyst at McREL, she has reviewed, revised, and developed standards documents for many districts, state agencies, and organizations. She has also reviewed instructional materials, created lesson plans, and conducted research on a wide variety of education topics. Ms. Schwols’s work with the Common Core State Standards includes development of gap analysis, crosswalk, and transition documents, as well as facilitating groups of teacher leaders on their implementation. 

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KATHLEEN DEMPSEY is a principal consultant with McREL. In this role, Ms. Dempsey works to provide services, strategies, and materials to support improvement in mathematics education, curriculum development, formative assessment, and integration of instructional technology. Additionally, Ms. Dempsey currently serves as a primary investigator for two mathematics studies funded by the Institute of Education Sciences. 

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JOHN KENDALL (Series Editor) is Senior Director in Research at McREL in Denver. Having joined McREL in 1988, Mr. Kendall conducts research and development activities related to academic standards. He directs a technical assistance unit that provides standards-related services to schools, districts, states, and national and international organizations. He is author of Understanding Common Core State Standards, senior author of Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K–12 Education, and the author or coauthor of numerous reports and guides related to standards-based systems. 

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