Supporting Implementation of the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice with Classroom Videos

CCRDG’s ongoing collaboration with Texas Instruments (TI) took a new turn in 2012 with funding from TI to produce of a series of videos for use in teacher professional development sessions. This project came about at the request of TI as a result of the history of collaboration between CRDG and ULS in preparing video vignettes of classroom instructional strategies. A previous video entitled “Bringing It All Together” that featured sixth-grade students at ULS using TI-Nspire handhelds to explore the area of quadrilaterals is an examplar in the chapter “Technology Tools to Support Mathematics Teaching” by Jessica Cohen and Karen F. Hollebrands in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics book Focus in High School Mathematics: Reasoning and Sense Making. Texas Instruments viewed the unique partnership between CRDG and ULS as ideal for the production of additional videos to be used in delivering professional development on ways students use technology to engage in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice.

Judith Olson from CRDG and Brendan Brennan from ULS worked with ninthand tenth-grade ULS student volunteers for several hours on two Saturday mornings as they explored mathematical concepts using the TI-Nspire and Nspire Navigator while engaging in the Standards for Mathematical Practice. Texas Instruments then designed a professional development workshop entitled “Implementing the Common Core Mathematical Practices with TINspire ™,” centered around the videos. The videos were used at the TI Instructor Professional Development Day with over four hundred of their national and regional instructors from the United States and abroad in March 2012 and in subsequent instructor professional development. Some of these instructors then used the videos during summer 2012with several hundred teachers in “Implementing The Common Core Mathematical Practices with TI-Nspire™” workshops around the nation.