Deconstructing Standards

One of my big tasks for myself this summer has been to create math pretests and lesson cards so that I can individualize in class more.  I want to be able to teach specific small groups of students lessons they need while other students work on tasks to practice what they need.  In this way, I can individualize, but not by sorting the kids into high, middle and low.  Every lesson might have different students.  It also means I'll have time to give lessons to students who need extra challenges, as well.

I'm toying with a structure that can tie all of this in together, because I really enjoy doing cooperative group tasks and application projects, as well.  I know I will be using a lot of interactive math notebook work, and will give differentiated menu choices so students have some time available for exploring on their own.  I'd really like to include some math history, as well.

I've done a lot of work on this, this summer, gathering tremendous amounts of resources.  My stumbling block has been putting together a student friendly list of standards, one that narrows down exactly what students will need to do in a language they (and I) can understand.  I want my list to cover pre-7th grade skills and span over into pre-algebra.  From there, I will give the students unit pre-tests covering these skills and will analyze to see what specific lessons they need.  (I'll use a spreadsheet to show who missed which questions.)

Deconstructing standards, though, isn't a matter of just finding a list and using it.  I've been looking into each standard and trying to figure out what I want the kids to be able to do.  I've also had to figure out what they should have been able to do from previous years.  I am hoping that this beginning list will be a good start for what skills to pre-test, student independently (in order to catch up), and receive small groups instruction.  I posted my first go at the number sense 7th grade standards unpacked on my new Teachers Pay Teachers store.  I'm hoping others can use them, and maybe give me some feedback on what I should add.