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Montana Common Core Standards Timeline...

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*SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium

Awareness and Planning: Introducing and Preparing for MCCS

Alignment: Aligning Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment to MCCS

Implementation: Learning and Teaching with MCCS

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Overview Series...

English Language Arts (ELA) Content Series...

Mathematics Content Series...

Assessment...

Learning Standards

Research has shown that successful professional development means “a comprehensive, sustained, and intensive approach to improving teachers’ and principals’ effectiveness in raising student achievement, “Learning Forward” (formerly the National Staff Development Council).
Learning Forward’s Standards for Professional Learning below outline characteristics of professional learning that lead to effective teaching practices, supportive leadership, and improved student results.

• Learning Communities: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students occurs within learning communities committed to continuous improvement, collective responsibility, and goal alignment.
• Leadership: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students requires skillful leaders who develop capacity, advocates, and create support systems for professional learning.
• Resources: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students requires prioritizing, monitoring, and coordinating resources for educator learning.
• Data: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students uses a variety of sources and types of student, educator, and system data to plan, assess, and evaluate professional learning.
• Learning Designs: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students integrates theories, research, and models of human learning to achieve its intended outcomes.
• Implementation: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students applies research on change and sustains support for implementation of professional learning for long-term change.
• Outcomes: Professional learning that increases educator effectiveness and results for all students aligns its outcomes with educator performance and student curriculum standards.

K-12...

This document lists the standards by K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-10, 11-12 grade bands.  Each strand of ELA is covered per grade band.  This document is most helpful for seeing the standards across grade bands.

Grade-Level K-12

Grade-Band K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-10, 11-12

Writing Standards Only K-12 in Excel

Grade Specific...

The documents included here are listed by grade level.  You may choose to see the ELA and literacy standards by each grade level or you may choose the entire document which includes all grade levels.  This document shows all standard strands per grade level.  This document is most helpful when focusing on specific grade levels.

Appendices...

The appendices are an invaluable resource. Please take time to explore the appendices in addition to the standards document.  The appendices are a useful tool for the implementation of literacy across content areas.  See Appendices A and B for support with text complexity. 

• Appendix A: Research Supporting Key Elements of the Standards Glossary of Key Terms: Appendix A shares research supporting key elements of the standards including text complexity.
  
• Appendix B: Text Exemplars and Sample Performance Tasks: Appendix B shares text exemplars and sample performance tasks.
  
• Appendix C: Samples of Student Writing: Appendix C shares samples of student writing.

These appendices are useful tools for understanding the rigor and expectations set forth by the Montana Common Core Standards.

Resources...

These resources are useful during the awareness and implementation phases of the Montana Common Core Standards.

• Common Core Video Series, Overview and Shifts
• ELA Learning Progressions
• ELA and Literacy Shift
• ELA and Literacy Standards Document Structure
• Publisher’s Criteria Grades K-2
• Publisher’s Criteria Grades 3-12
• MCCS: Montana Common Core Standards Wiki
• Indian Education for All
  OPI Indian Education for All Lessons

K-12...

Montana Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice and Content

Grade-Level K-12

Grade-Band K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12

Montana Common Core Standards: toward greater focus and coherence. William Schmidt and Richard Houang (2002) have said that content standards and curricula are coherent if they are: articulated over time as a sequence of topics and performances that are logical and reflect, where appropriate, the sequential or hierarchical nature of the disciplinary content from which the subject matter derives. That is, what and how students are taught should reflect not only the topics that fall within a certain academic discipline, but also the key ideas that determine how knowledge is organized and generated within that discipline. This implies that “to be coherent,” a set of content standards must evolve from particulars (e.g., the meaning and operations of whole numbers, including simple math facts and routine computational procedures associated with whole numbers and fractions) to deeper structures inherent in the discipline. These deeper structures then serve as a means for connecting the particulars (such as an understanding of the rational number system and its properties).

These Standards endeavor to follow such a design, not only by stressing conceptual understanding of key ideas, but also by continually returning to organizing principles such as place value or the laws of arithmetic to structure those ideas.

In addition, the “sequence of topics and performances” that is outlined in a body of mathematics standards must also respect what is known about how students learn. As Confrey (2007) points out, developing “sequenced obstacles and challenges for students…absent the insights about meaning that derive from careful study of learning, would be unfortunate and unwise.” In recognition of this, the development of these Standards began with research-based learning progressions detailing what is known today about how students’ mathematical knowledge, skill, and understanding develop over time. (MCCS Grade Level K-12 page 2-3)

Grade Specific...

Montana Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice and Content

Grade Level Standards by Domain and Cluster

These Standards define what students should understand and be able to do in their study of mathematics. The Standards set grade-specific standards but do not define the intervention methods or materials necessary to support students who are well below or well above grade-level expectations. It is also beyond the scope of the Standards to define the full range of supports appropriate for English language learners and for students with special needs. At the same time, all students must have the opportunity to learn and meet the same high standards if they are to access the knowledge and skills necessary in their post-school lives. The Standards should be read as allowing for the widest possible range of students to participate fully from the outset, along with appropriate accommodations to ensure maximum participation of students with special education needs. For example, for students with disabilities reading should allow for use of Braille, screen reader technology, or other assisting devices, while writing should include the use of a scribe, computer, or speech-to-text technology. In a similar vein, speaking and listening should be interpreted broadly to include sign language. No set of grade-specific standards can fully reflect the great variety in abilities, needs, learning rates, and achievement levels of students in any given classroom. However, the Standards do provide clear signposts along the way to the goal of college and career readiness for all students. (MCCS page 3)

Mathematical Practices...

Montana Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice

MCCS Math Practice Grouping Chart

Montana Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice At-A-Glance

The Standards for Mathematical Practice describe varieties of expertise that mathematics educators at all levels should seek to develop in their students. These practices rest on important “processes and proficiencies” with long-standing importance in mathematics education. The first of these are the NCTM process standards of problem solving, reasoning and proof, communication, representation, and connections. The second are the strands of mathematical proficiency specified in the National Research Council’s report Adding It Up: adaptive reasoning, strategic competence, conceptual understanding (comprehension of mathematical concepts, operations and relations), procedural fluency (skill in carrying out procedures flexibly, accurately, efficiently and appropriately), and productive disposition (habitual inclination to see mathematics as sensible, useful, and worthwhile, coupled with a belief in diligence and one’s own efficacy). (MCCS Grade Level K-12 page 5)

H.S. Pathways...

Model High School Course Pathways based on the Common State Standards

Appendix A: Designing High School Mathematics Courses Based on the Common Core State Standards

Arranging the High School Standards

1. This document does not include the Montana Common Core Standards with Indian Education for All standards.
2. The pathways and courses are models, not mandates. They illustrate possible approaches to organizing the content of the CCSS into coherent and rigorous courses that lead to college and career readiness
3. All college and career ready standards (those without a +) are found in each pathway. A few (+) standards are included to increase coherence but are not necessarily expected to be addressed on high stakes assessments.
4. The course descriptions delineate the mathematics standards to be covered in a course; they are not prescriptions for curriculum or pedagogy. Additional work will be needed to create coherent instructional programs that help students achieve these standards.
5. Units within each course are intended to suggest a possible grouping of the standards into coherent blocks; in this way, units may also be considered “critical areas” or “big ideas”, and these terms are used interchangeably throughout the document. The ordering of the clusters within a unit follows the order of the standards document in most cases, not the order in which they might be taught. Attention to ordering content within a unit will be needed as instructional programs are developed.
6. While courses are given names for organizational purposes, districts are encouraged to carefully consider the content in each course and use names that they feel are most appropriate. Similarly, unit titles may be adjusted by states and districts.

Resources...

The Montana Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice and Content are not intended to be new names for old ways of doing business. They are a call to take the next step. It is time for everyone to collaborate and build collective capacity. These resources support collaboration for the transition and implementation of these standards.

• GISMO: Generating Increased Science and Math Opportunities
  Learning trajectory with descriptions and more for each standard
• Tools for the Common Core Standards
  Mathematics standards progressions and blog for asking Bill McCallum clarification and description of specific standards
• Illustrative Mathematics
  Description of standards and tasks
• The Mathematics Common Core Toolbox
  Middle and High school tasks
• National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
  A Variety of core math tools
• NCSM: Network Communicate Support Motivate
  Illustrating the Standards for Mathematical Practice with videos and tasks
• Inside Mathematics
  Classroom examples, tools for mathematics instruction, video tours
• MCCS: Math Learning Progressions by Domain
• MCCS: Shifts in Mathematics
• MCCS: Mathematics Document Structure
• MCCS: Montana Common Core Standards Wiki
  Several links to various resources
• Indian Education for All
  OPI Indian Education for All Lessons
  

SMARTER Balanced...

MontCAS CRT...

2011-12 through 2013-14 the MontCAS will:

• Use the current standards and reporting system
• Progressively align content with the Montana Common Core Standards
• Implement test questions to align with the Montana Common Core Standards
• Provide released field test items aligned to Montana Common Core Standards

Resources...

• The SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium
• Summative Assessment Master Work Plan and Procurement Schedule
• SMARTER Computer Adaptive Testing
• SMARTER Summary of Core Components