I looked through the test and it's seems pretty reasonable. Number sentences seem like it'd be pretty useful to move students into the idea of algebraic equations,something that a lot of middle school students seem to have trouble with. It's also starting to teach kids how to read a question and set up a system of equations of variables to solve, which is a pretty big part of high school math.

Not sure how any of this is unreasonably difficult, but it seems like it's teaching some pretty valuable skills to prepare kids for higher levels of math.

I don't remember learning a table for subtraction equations. I remember learning that if you take 2 apples from 3 apples you only have 1 apple remaining, thus 3-2=1. It's similar to that test that was posted above, but no where near as convoluted. Was I learning common core? If so, then I think they did a pretty good job, but that test above is total horseshit with their terminology, phrasing and placement of questions.

But many people do not learn this way because of the rag tag collection of education standards and resources throughout the States. Common core was just trying to create a standard that promotes early math skills and development so needed in our increasingly more complex society while retiring traditional techniques that educators have found to be more harm than good.

But it is correct that the semantics involved are heinously more complicated than necessary when the goal was to simply and aid visualization for earlier age groups.

From what I heard from people who had siblings in common core is just drastically different than the way math was traditionally taught. Also I'm not exactly 100% sure on this but wasn't common core implemented just to get money from government?

Pretty much. If you didn't accept Common Core, the government got rid of any funding they gave to the states.

Based off what I saw on the test shown above, questions have the potential to be incredibly vague which is a problem if it is trying to circumvent problems people have with understanding math.

I kinda like it, it teaches you to be self-sufficent, and to think outside the box imo

http://i.imgur.com/uePcpfB.jpg

I asked my friend who's taken math philo classes about this shit. He showed me this thing he found, saying that common core's goal is to increase mental math efficiency while also adding to critical thinking. His opinion was that some of the old was better but common core is good, especially when the calculator was basically killing any purpose of mental math, but we relied on it so much it's become a crutch and we have a hard time doing what we'd consider more complicated mental math in our head.

It sort of reminds me about a math teacher in middle school teaching algebraic equations and saying "just move this number to this side and it becomes the opposite of what it is" for the sake of easy explaining, and my algebra prof years later being like "fuck that shit that isn't how it works" and explaining it looked that way because this was what was actually happening.

I remember reading an article once about how eastern/asian school methods tend to breed fairly consistent and strong intellects, but rarely do they encourage more advanced or genius level development, which often comes to a head when large scale innovation or redesign is necessary.

Modern education seems to emphasize, at least in stated objectives, a more responsive and flexible workforce but school is dumb so i dropped out

i thought #7 and #8 was geometry

I guess I'm younger than all of you and being as I just came through middle school, elementary school no more than 4 years ago. I guess I'm in a position to talk about this stuff. I'm not entirely sure if I learned the "Common Core" way but a lot of the stuff seems pretty familiar to me. I didn't think the questions were super vague but I recall some questions like that that I didn't get as a kid. And I do remember doing latice in 3rd grade (someone mentioned it here) It was actually great for a younger age because to me it followed a very simple format and you are able to see the math right in front of you and actually build the mental capibility to add and subtract numbers quickly. A year later after I actually understood math like that I dropped it but the same basic priniciple was there. Regardless I'm not educated on this subject at all but it doesn't seem too bad to me. It's just different.

tl;dr I think it just reinforces the steps of learning, leaving the more complex shortcuts for later

Same with me I'm just a freshmen in high school and what I remembered learning in elementary school is not the same with what I see now. And I'm not sure if this applies with all states with Common Core, but Florida is now making every course have its own EOC (End of Course) Exam, which in my opionion is absurd plainly because students already have to worry about other exams such as AP/IB/Cambrige Exams. And what I found the most stupidest part of this whole EOC thing is that even the most minor classes, such as being a office/teacher aid, still have EOC's

I honestly don't have a younger sibling so I couldn't tell you if it's the same thing I learned (I go to a small private school little less 1000 students) so I would assume that it's the same. And I'm not even sure if it was common core I'm just saying that this seems familiar and doesn't seem all the bad to me. If it was infact common core it did the trick for me. And yeah I think EOCs are pretty standard for Virginia I guess that's new in florida(?)
also ya I'm a freshman too

http://www.corestandards.org/standards-in-your-state/

according to this Virginia hasn't adopted it but like I said my school might be different because its a private school

ha, you guys haven't seen digits yet. we did this in like 8th grade.
digits- basically an online textbook that a teacher can just put on the board and let the automated voice teach you, only reasons 8th grade was my worst year in math. also, it serves as an online homework where you can literally guess all the answers and get unlimited tries, gaining zero knowledge. yes, this is common core i assume also.
MAP testing.
standardized testing. how it works- you sign in on the computer, take the test. every answer you get right, the next question will get harder, until you get one wrong, where you start at an easy question again. Yes, you can get answers that a 3rd grader is getting possibly... problem- these map testings barely mean anything and if you really don't care you can just answer questions and be done. solution- teachers can time you out to stop you and you get in "trouble". In 10 minutes I had done like 30 or so questions, most of them right, and my teacher told me to slow down because i was going fast even though i was on a question that i didn't know (8th grade english)
While that was my only year of common core, im still doing "Common Core" in math class, but it is not at the level of stupidity of what i was tortured in middle school

This is the problem with common core for math at least. There are a lot of things that people that are good at math do without even really noticing it. Common core is attempting to teach these methods to everyone. That's not really a bad thing, and people who were taught a different method probably aren't going to understand why they are learning it like this. The ideas behind it are good, but they are trying to implement it at all levels at the same time, so if you are teaching a third grade subject using common core methods without them having learned the second grade material with common core methods, it's going to create problems. It's being rolled out way too quickly and there are a lot of problems with textbooks and curriculum because it's being rushed so much. That's what creates these poorly made worksheets.

While you could argue about whether the methods for math are good or not, I think the common core ideals for other subjects are actually quite smart. They are just trying to do everything way too fast with way too little education and training for everyone involved.

People probably bitched this much when the Chicago Math style of teaching came around too.
From what I've heard from my mom who teaches 6th grade, the other teachers in her school aren't mad about this at all. Firstly, they know how to teach the other style, it's not like they get brainwashed and forget how to math or whatever. Secondly, this adds another method of teaching this to kids, which is incredibly vital. Thirdly, "vague" and other complaints go to show the exact issue it's meant to combat. I'm sorry if that seems really fucking rude, but math is analysis, and analysis is supposed to dissect things, not have them spelled out.
Finally, my mother teaches science, which still forces the old way of doing math, so it's not like it's gone.

In summary, you've got to be a fucking idiot not to figure this shit out,

This kind of shit isn't really a big deal. It follows the chicago math style of thinking which was 4+[ ]=7 (or [ ] + 3=7, 4+3= [ ] ) in a graphical way which is, by all means a subtraction problem as much as it is an addition problem. (You know, they're not different, just the opposite sides of the same operation.)

I had a friend that rounded every single addition/subtraction problem until the 6th grade. That's all that's happening in that second one, rounding, taking the remainders.

So my main issue isn't that you guys don't like it, but it's the brash "its dumb" mentality that some people get.
Teaching methods are not specifically catered toward individuals while they go through the public school system. They're meant to catch the LCD so that they're capable of surviving in the world.

im in my 3rd year of university and still didnt understand #1 until i read further down the thread

i guess they have lowered admission standards over the last couple of decades

As a current undergraduate in mathematics I notice that lots of math students struggle with explaining clearly how they arrived at a certain solution - being unable to do this for a simple problem makes it near impossible for one to be able to even begin to attempt a difficult problem. The regular calculus courses do not require this ability so it's not a huge problem for anyone outside of mathematics, so this is really only an issue that concerns courses that math students encounter. Then, since the number of these students is relatively low (one major among hundreds), common core doesn't seem aimed at relieving this specific problem. Poo.

That being said, I can't help but wonder whether this might actually deter students from pursuing mathematics (or maybe increase the interest????) since they get a taste of the "pedantry" that is required by a lot of higher level math courses. A lot of students pursing a mathematics degree are looking to teach or to go into finance, at least at my school, and perhaps not by coincidence these seem to compose the majority of students that struggle with explaining their solutions. Maybe common core would help give these people earlier exposure to this side of math which no longer stresses computation.

I'm in mathematics not to teach or to go into finance or any of that - I'm studying it because I absolutely love it. I cringe whenever I hear other math students ask a question like, "Will we be required to write a proof for this exam?" or "Do we need to explain our answers?" To me, how one arrives at a results is the solution itself - while I'm not going to claim that all mathematicians think this way, I know a good number of them feel the same way. If I give you a problem and you give the result of some mysterious computation, then I will look at you as if you gave me nothing at all (provided I didn't give you a trivial problem, of course). You have no solution, in my eyes.

All that being said, I'm not convinced that common core is worth the effort. Frankly, the mathematics I study isn't for everyone and isn't too useful to anyone save for a small number of people, namely those who do math all day (which I basically do) and while I'd be thrilled if this did help more people think the way I and a lot of my peers do, I'd be even more heartbroken if it brought more students to claim that they "hate math."

#1 is confusing to me at first because they put the larger amount on the right side, and that threw my brain off that wanted to give a negative number. when you actually read the question which is "find the missing part" and see that the question is 6-5 you should arrive at the answer pretty easily.

i think most people who got confused by #1 didn't read the question or they assumed the child had gotten the right answer by saying 3 and then tried to solve the question

I'm not sure how that test is supposed to be absurdly specific.

It's more like explaining math through examples young children may be able to relate to rather than assigning a meanings to symbols they may not yet understand.

I'm also missing how a term like number sentence is pedantic. Imagine you're a student in the first grade. You probably might not understand what an equation is, but you would know what a sentence is. So instead of saying equation, it's a sentence made with numbers instead of words. So rather than try to introduce an entirely new concept, equations, students are eased into the idea of equations by relating them to sentences.

honestly I don't understand what the thought process was of changing completely how the new generation thinks of math problems. like that other person said, math should be totally universal, this may cause confusion between our generation and the newer one if we were to discuss the same math problem

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20141206.png

(from smbc)

I'm pretty good at math, and I had the first two years of my high school in english, so I googled this new system and man.. some these questions are vague as shit

It's not really vague, it's more like they phrase it in a weird way so that kids can process addition and subtraction in a different way.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c136/Iblissstyx/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_751308141429248_zpsfhtctdlc.jpeg

Personally I feel I would really dislike the tediousness of addition and subtraction sentences but I understand the logic they are trying to implement since I think this way a lot in terms of variables for simple addition and subtraction.

You realize subtraction is the negation of addition right? So instead of your 5+1 = 6, the problem has 6 (whole) - 5 (known) = 1.

That explanation makes no sense...

What kind of question is that? The whole still has one more than the known, not less.