High School Sequencing: The Organization of the CCSSM Part II

Yesterday we walked through the main organization of the CCSSM (Common Core State Standards for Mathematics), discussing where to find the document, how the standards are arranged into clusters and domains, and what additional helpful info is contained in the grade-level introductions. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about the high school standards and how they are organized, because it's not as straight-forward as the K-8 standards.

When the writers of the CCSSM sat down to write the high school standards, they had a real challenge in how to organize the high school content, because there is a lot of controversy around how to organize and sequence high school math. (I bet you had no idea there was so much drama in math ed!)

In the traditional sequence, the courses are Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II.

In the integrated sequence, the same content is covered, but in a more ... well, as the name says ... integrated manner. Integrated courses are referred to more generally as Math I, Math II, and Math III.

The controversy and preference for one sequence over another has been around for awhile. (I am a strong supporter of the integrated sequencing, personally.) Some states have traditional sequences, some integrated, and some states leave the choice of sequence up to districts.

Since a goal of the Common Core was to be ... well ... in common among many states, the writers needed to come up with a solution that would keep everybody happy. (Keep in mind, the two sequences cover the same materially, they just group content differently, and their chronology for covering it is different.)

As the peace-makers that they are, CCSSM authors opted to code the high school content by domains, and then offer suggested pathways for covering that content. (There are actually four suggested pathways for covering the content, because the authors also included ways of bringing the high school material into middle school, as a number of states and schools have been pushing to do with the algebra-for-all movement and others.)

So let's cut to the chase, shall we?

In Appendix A of the CCSSM, you can find these pathways. (When you're on the interactive standards page of corestandars.org, Appendix A is in the menu at the left ... you just have to scroll really far down. It's at the bottom.)

I've pulled up the traditional pathway to give us a concrete example to discuss:

The courses are listed across the top, with the domains listed in the left-most column. Let's look at the domain of "Seeing Structure in Expression" from the Algebra topic in HS. If we look at the Algebra I course, we see that there are six standards from this domain present:

• A.SSE.1a
• A.SSE.1b
• A.SSE.2
• A.SSE.3a
• A.SSE.3b
• A.SSE.3c

You'll notice that the coding is a little different. There isn't a grade-level designation embedded in the code. Instead, there's the HS topic. In this case, that topic is "Algebra" (which should not be confused with "Algebra I" or "Algebra II" which are courses). However, once you shake you head a little to clear the fog around a topic called "Algebra," you notice that the next part of the code is much like it was for the K-8 standards: SSE refers to the domain: Seeing Structure in Expressions. The last bit of code refers to the standard number and cluster under the SSE domain.

You might also notice that some of these standards are also present in Algebra II, but where they apply in Alg I to linear, exponential, and quadratic expressions ... now in Alg II the same expectations are applied to polynomial and rational expressions.

If you have a kiddo in Algebra I and you wanted to see what standards outline their goals for the year, you would read down the Algebra I column, through the appendix, to see what content is there.

Caveat: since the CCSSM did not mandate a sequencing, your state may have kept the same content overall, but done a little shuffling. Therefore, I strongly suggest that you check with your child's teacher as to what they reference for their standards--the CCSSM document, or a more specific state document.

Tomorrow we're going to talk about one more structural thing--the Standards for Mathematical Practice. In my humble opinion, the Standards for Mathematical Practice are the STARS of the CCSSM, and as many stars often do, they've caused a bit of drama. Come back tomorrow to learn more :)


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