Friday, July 17, 2015

Practices, Capacities, Dimensions...Oh My....

In my job in the last 7 years I dealt, primarily, with mathematics.  In my quest to "get up to speed" with the other 3 contents (for my new job) I found myself becoming a bit overwhelmed.  Elementary teachers who teach all four contents have quite a lot of Common Core Content to live and breath.  Not only do they have 4 sets of standards but also 4 sets of "habits of mind" or what they call Practices (Math and Science), Capacities (ELA), and Dimensions (C3/SS).  

My math partner and crime, Mary Ann, and I set out to help ourselves by looking at the similarities and differences between these habits of mind.  We first took the Math Practices (our comfort area) and then matched up the other contents were they were similar to math.  That still looked a little overwhelming so we, together, came up with a set of 6 general Habits of Mind that we felt could encompass all of the contents.  Now, we don't mean to replace the Practices Capacities, and Dimensions but simply create a more "teacher friendly" version that would help those teachers see the threads that tie all of the contents together.  
To access this as a pdf: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5W64FecuRP3LTdqTzRqNTk3U2s/view?usp=sharing
This certainly is not written in stone but is an attempt to make sense of the connections and those skills we want all kids to leave school with (the habits of mind).  If they master these things, the world will be at their finger tips - they will be able to solve any problem!  


What do you think of what we created here?

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