The Common Core mathematical practice standard of “Attend to Precision” – MP6 at a cursory glance appears to be a call to be accurate in calculations.  There’s more to it however. With this Infographic, I cover the 4 essential steps to developing this practice with your students.

Explain what this Mathematical Practice means                                                    Decoding what this mathematical practice means to the teacher and student is an essential first step. Calculating precisely is obviously an important part of attend to precision. In addition, this practice also asks for communicating using appropriate Math terminology, labeling quantities correctly, and understanding various symbols. Students need to fist get all that the practice involves before they start actively practicing it.

Be a role model                                                                                                                                     One of the most effective ways teachers can help is to model – attending to precision themselves in their communications with students. As Michelle Douglass explains in her blog about Helping Math Students Attend to Precision, getting children to use the correct Math vocabulary is not the easiest task and it takes time to develop this skill. For starters, teachers need to be consistent in the use of precise language in their instruction and students will pick it over time.

"I CAN" statements                                                        
For all the good intent that went into creating this mathematical practice, the purpose is not served if students do not adopt it. Get students to develop I-CAN statements related to “Attend to Precision”. Depending on the grade level of students, different strategies can be used from fun activities like Word Walls by Steve’s Classroom to getting students to explain their own thinking using the appropriate Math language.

Ask deeper questions                                                                                                                 
Questions are probably the most powerful tool in the teacher’s arsenal to develop this practice. Ask deep probing questions, get students to speak and develop a habit of using the right Math language when answering or discussing in class.

Do you have suggestions of how to implement this practice? Would love to hear from you.

Download 10quotes.pdf file to print these quotes for personal and/or classroom use. 

The fifth of the Common Core Practice Standards addresses Math tools and their strategic use. Typically, Math classes  do incorporate the usage and teaching of different tools be it paper/pencil, calculators, graphs, manipulatives etc.

However, the key aspect of this practice standard - Using Appropriate Tools Strategically, is that students should be critically thinking about potential tools they can use to solve problems, weather or not to use certain tools, the pros/cons of different tools and whether the results from tools match what they had estimated. 

John SanGiovanni in a blog about this Mathematical Practice brings up a valid point about the "strategic use" of the Math tools. John notes that the usage of tools could be strategic based on the grade of the student and what it is being used for. For e.g. while it might be a good strategy for lower elementary student to validate their solution to a simple math addition problem (5 + 12 = ?) using a calculator, it may not make sense for a higher elementary grade student to use a calculator for the same. 

To implement this standard, teachers, students, the type of Math tasks used and the type of questions to ask to get students thinking in terms of Math tools, all play a critical role. In this infographic, I address these very points. Hope you enjoy it!

This is part five in our ongoing eight part series.  Earlier posts can be found here_.

The third of the eight Common Core Math Practice Standards advocates developing a habit/practice that is probably the most crucial one to have once students enter the workforce.

Being able to think analytically, explain ones thinking, building a compelling argument, critiquing and responding to another's point of view - these are all key traits needed to build successful careers. Math offers plenty of opportunities to build these traits if the appropriate learning activities and the right kind of questions are asked. I'm really happy that the MP3 standard addresses this.

I created this Infographic to summarize what this standard - MP3 - Construct Viable Arguments and Critique the Reasoning of others means, how teachers and students can implement it and what questions to ask in class to build this Mathematical practice. 

​This is part three in our ongoing series.  Earlier posts can be found here.

Share it on your blog using the embed code below. To share it on Pinterest, point your mouse to top left corner of this image, or share it on other social media using left hand side"share" menu. 

Need inspiration for helping students reason abstractly and quantitatively? Check this detailed Infographic on how to implement Common Core Mathematical Practice Standard MP2 - Reason Abstractly and Quantitatively. 

This visually explains what contextualize, decontextualize and reason quantitatively means. It shows what actions teachers and students need to take to implement this standard, the attributes a Math task should have and what kind of questions to ask to develop the Mathematical thinking as described in this standard.
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This is part two in our ongoing series.  Earlier posts can be found here.

Share it on your blog using the embed code below. To share it on Pinterest, point your mouse to top left corner of this image, or share it on other social media using left hand side"share" menu. 

In our previous post, we published an Infographic poster listing the 8 Pillars for a Solid Math foundation. In this Infographic, we look at the first of the Common Core Mathematical Practice Standards - MP1 - Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.   It answers the following questions:

How do teachers and students implement it?  
What type of Math tasks should you use to implement it? 
What kind of questions should you ask to develop students' Mathematical thinking for this practice standard? 

Share it on your blog using the embed code below. To share it on Pinterest, point your mouse to top left corner of this image, or share it on other social media using left hand side"share" menu.  

Quick guide to use PrepToon to spark curiosity , engage learners and develop critical thinkers using our interactive story-based animations which help teachers do formative assessment. Catch them ( doing right / or wrong) while the learning is happening. 

PrepToon's blog was born on September 1st, 2015, with this handy Infographic poster listing the eight Mathematical Practice Standards as defined by Common Core. We hope you enjoy using this as much as we enjoyed creating it.

This is the first Infographic of our ongoing series,  8 Pillars to Build a Solid Math Foundation. Next post for this series can be found here.