Mathematics Content Emphasis Documents
The Arizona Department of Education K-12 Standards Section is providing planning guidance regarding the major and supporting clusters found within the Arizona Mathematics Standards, Adopted 2016. The Math Workgroup has made changes to the content emphasis documents based on what we have learned since 2010. Please consider the following designations when planning an instructional scope for the school year. The ADE is suggesting instructional time encompass 70% for Major Clusters at each grade level/course.
Thank you to the East Valley Mathematics Leaders Group for completing the Arizona K-5 Mathematics Progression Documents. The East Valley Math Leaders met throughout the 2018-2019 year to complete the work on the K-5 progression documents.
The Arizona Mathematics Progression Documents are in first draft! These progressions are living documents and will be updated when feedback from the field has been reviewed and agreed upon. The Arizona Mathematics Progression Documents will be updated each year with different extended resources and extensions as indicated by feedback from the field and through needs determined by Math Specialists across the state. Feedback would be greatly appreciated! Please send feedback to [email protected].
The Arizona Mathematics Progression Documents are a great place to start with curriculum mapping and scope and sequence. Please also reference the major and supporting content emphasis documents. These documents provide information that will assist you in how much instructional time you should spend on different clusters of math content and each grade or in each high school course.
Even though the Arizona Mathematics Standards have been reviewed and revised in 2016, it is suggested that you still utilized Common Core math support documents to assist with planning, curriculum design and professional development. Please make sure that you are analyzing the Arizona Mathematics Standards for alignment to the Common Core Math Standards. There are some differences between the Common Core and the Arizona Mathematics Standards. But support materials are still beneficial in planning and in getting to know the content standards.
Here are additional reliable and valid progression documents to assist your planning.
Progression Documents for the Common Core Math Standards The Common Core State Standards in mathematics were built on progressions: narrative documents describing the progression of a topic across a number of grade levels, informed both by research on children’s cognitive development and by the logical structure of mathematics. These documents were spliced together and then sliced into grade level standards.
Progression documents can explain why standards are sequenced the way they are, point out cognitive difficulties and pedagogical solutions, and give more detail on particularly tricky areas of the mathematics. Progression documents should be useful in teacher preparation and professional development, organizing curriculum, and writing textbooks. Progressions documents also provide a transmission mechanism between mathematics education research and standards. Research about learning progressions produces knowledge which can be transmitted through the progressions document to the standards revision process; questions and demands on standards writing can be transmitted back the other way into research questions.
A Graph of the Common Core Standards The original graph of the Common Core Standards was released by Jason Zimba, one of the writers of the Common Core Standards. Driven by popular demand, the Common Core Team and Andrew Chen at EduTron added the pop-up text so if you mouse over each box, the corresponding Standards will be displayed. This graph shows connections between math content standards. The graph also communicates a sense of flow and planning from kindergarten to high school. This graph also shows major and supporting clusters by highlighted colors. Please check to make sure there is correlation between the Common Core major and supporting clusters and the Arizona major and supporting clusters. Most are the same, but some have been changed by Arizona Educators.
Achieve the Core Achieve the Core has a Coherence Map for mathematics from kindergarten through Algebra 2. Standards relate to one another, both within and across grades. The Coherence Map is an interactive website that illustrates the coherent structure of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics K–High School. This site provides one representation of how the standards are connected to each other, and is derived from this wiring diagram. A great video is linked to the site that illustrates the importance of coherence in mathematics.
The Coherence Map shows the connections between common core state standards for mathematics.
The Arizona Department of Education, with the support from schools and district offers some exemplar curriculum maps for mathematics. We are truly thankful to the districts that have provided their maps as resources for others to learn from and ask questions about. Please consider contacting one of the district contacts if you have any questions about why certain content was given the amount of time it was or what was the rationale around the content sequence across the scope of the year.
**When creating math standards documents make sure to use the content emphasis documents to align instructional time with major and supporting math content across the scope of the school year.
Scottsdale Unified School District – Kindergarten – 5th grade curriculum maps
Each year, Scottsdale Unified School District works collaboratively with teachers and leaders across its district to revisit and revise, if necessary, its standards maps. The K-5 files linked below align to the Arizona Mathematics Standards adopted in 2016. Planning guides have also been developed for each unit of student at each grade level.
If you would like additional information on the standards maps or the process that Scottsdale Unified utilized to develop their resources, please contact their elementary lead.
Michael Richards, Director, Elementary Curriculum and Instruction
The Chandler Unified School District worked collaboratively with teachers and leaders last year to revise and refine their K-12 mathematics standards maps. These maps are aligned to the Arizona Mathematics Standards adopted in 2016. If you would like additional information on their standards maps or the process that Chandler Unified School District utilized, please contact their team.
Amy McCarthy
Renee Sweeden
The development of the fourth credit guidance and standards began in January 2017 under the guidance of the Arizona Department of Education. A statewide committee of high school mathematics teachers, district Mathematics Specialists and Professors and Mathematicians from Institutes of Higher Education reviewed research and other state standards to create the general guidance and standards related to fourth-credit mathematics. The Quantitative Reasoning and Precalculus Standards are also aligned to the high school Plus Standards.
Standards outline what a student needs to know, understand, and be able to do by the end of each grade. Standards build across grade levels in a progression of increasing understanding and through a range of cognitive demand levels. Standards are adopted at the state level by the State Board of Education (A.R.S. §§15-701 and 15-701.01). Arizona retains authority to approve and modify academic standards; there is no federal law requiring the adoption of specific standards.
The fourth-credit standards for Quantitative Reasoning and Precalculus are not board adopted since fourth credit mathematics courses are a local control decision.
These documents represent guidance only for schools and districts. It is a local control decision what courses are offered in a four-credit mathematics pathway.
Fourth Credit Math General Guidance (September 2018)
Arizona Precalculus Standards (September 2018)
Arizona Quantitative Reasoning Standards (September 2018)
