Tuesday, January 1, 2013

My New Year's Resolution!

I have a feeling that 2013 is going to be insanely busy, but still, I think I am going to use my free time towards a cause that I think is worthwhile. I think there are too many great math lesson resources out there on the web, but they're all scattered all over the place and not organized in a centralized location. I know that when I sit down in front of the computer, usually I only have a few hours to plan a lot of lessons. That makes cross-checking all of our wonderful sites for all the possible lesson resources, a nearly impossible task. So, for myself and hopefully for some of you out there, I'm starting a teacher-friendly repository of Common Core Math Lessons !

I think/know I have seen some of these attempts at collecting CCSS lessons out there, and yet when I tried to click through the repositories I could find from google, there were lots of nested links that led me to a dead-end page. That's got to be one of the most frustrating designs ever! So, I decided to make this wiki structure very flat. You go from the landing page via one click to content listed by grades (some of them are mixed because there is some overlapping content between grades, or just because I think it's more useful to list progressing content side-by-side so you can see the link to previous/next grade level), and then the links to lesson material are then visible directly under the topic overview.

I am going to spend my own time working on this, starting with grades 1 through 5. (I've already more or less fleshed out grades 1 and 2, using lesson material that I found on the web since I've never taught those grades myself.) I would really love it if this could be a collaborative effort! I think of it as an interactive textbook of sorts, or lesson plan book, that steps through some effective methods of teaching math topics as outlined by the Common Core. If you feel that there are lessons you already know (whether your own or someone else's) that would fit nicely into one of the existing topics under the Common Core, then please contact me and I'll add you to the list of editors on the site!

Thanks a bunch, and happy jolly 2013! 

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like an awesome idea! I'd love to participate. I'll also share your site with some teacher friends.

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  2. Great! Either you can find the link at the top-left of the wiki page that says "Join now", or you can send me your email address at mimiyang@gmail.com and I will send you an invite through the system.

    If you poke through the 'Grades 1 through 5' page, you can see how I've set up the external links to directly point at the lessons that I think are good to go. Else I wrapped some instructions in an internal wiki page (see http://ccsslessons.wikispaces.com/Counting+M%26Ms ) and set up a link to that from the 'Grades 1 through 5' page. yay! I'm excited to have my first contributor! You can work on whatever grade level you want to start with... The idea is for us to flesh it out as much as possible over time. xoxx

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