7503: CLUSTERS ACTIVITY

Clusters and Standards Activity:

One of the things that we will consider this semester is what it means to “unpack” a standard and different approaches to doing so. In Chapter 4, the author of the Brahier textbook describes one approach. Another strategy involves starting at the Cluster level. For this activity, your task is to choose:

Grade 7: Expressions and Equations – Solve real-like and mathematical problems using numerical and algebraic expressions and equations.

Using this cluster, respond to the questions on the “Cluster and Standards” document in Module content. In the Discussion, do the following:

For your INITIAL POST:

1. In the title, include information to identify the cluster that you analyzed (i.e., “Grade 7” or “High School”).

2. Attach your completed “Cluster and Standards” document.

You are required to respond to AT LEAST TWO other students who analyzed the SAME cluster. In your RESPONSE:

1. Compare your analysis of the cluster with the analysis of the other student. Were your ideas the same? If not, how did they differ?

2. If you were both teaching in the same school and the same grade or subject, would the similarities/differences in your analysis be important? Why? In other words, does it matter if your answers on the “Cluster and Standards” document agree? Why? Or why not?

Cluster and Standards

1. Identify connections across a cluster of standards. Read the full language of the cluster, and consider what students need to know and be able to do.

· What are the main concepts and ideas within this cluster?

2. Reflect on the parts and the whole. Read through each of the standards within the cluster, and consider what students need to know and be able to do. But remember, we’re not just unpacking standards into individual objectives that we’ll teach and check off a list—we’re looking to make connections across standards, so students understand concepts and ideas as a unified whole, instead of as discrete, isolated parts of a whole.

· What will students know and be able to do if they’ve successfully mastered the standards within this cluster?

· How does each standard connect to the cluster?

· How does each standard connect to other standards in the cluster?

3. Determine the aspect(s) of rigor at play. Study the language of each standard within the cluster to identify whether it requires conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and/or that a mathematical concept is applied.

· Does this standard require conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and/or application?

Adapted from the Achievement Network “Understanding Math Clusters and Standards”