(Vol. 1, No. 1 - Winter 1996/1997)

What's a Standard, Anyway?

Simply stated, a "standard" describes a piece a learning that fits into a larger whole. In Kentucky, the larger whole can be found in the state "curriculum framework." This document describes what Kentuckians expect high school graduates to know and be able to do. From here on, it's not so simple!

Here's an example of a Kentucky mathematics standard: "Students understand space and dimensionality concepts and use them appropriately and accurately." Geometry, in other words.
The Kentucky curriculum framework breaks this standard down into smaller pieces by giving teachers "demonstrators" of the kinds of things students should be able to do. Here is an example of a middle school demonstrator: "Use attributes to classify and analyze regular and irregular figures in 2 and 3 dimensions."

The framework manual (also called "Transformations") includes sample activities. Here's one for middle school: "Construct models of the five platonic solids and investigate relationships among the number of edges, faces, and vertices."

Need more detail? Try the state's "Core Content for Mathematics Assessment." This document gets more specific about what will be tested on KIRIS. In the middle school section under "geometry/measurement," teachers learn, for example, that students should understand "basic geometric elements which include segments, rays, and planes; two-dimensional shapes including circles, regular polygons, special quadrilaterals, and special triangles; (and) common three-dimensional shapes."

Since students must develop skills as well as knowledge, the core content document says students should be able to "identify characteristics of two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes" and "use appropriate tools and strategies to find measures of both regular and irregular shapes."
Finally, students need to understand relationships -- or how the knowledge and skills connect. For example, students should understand the following relationship: "how formulas for measurement of regular shapes related to measurement of irregular shapes."

Got it?

How do teachers design lessons around standards? While there are lots of resources (the state points to many of them at its World Wide Web site: www.kde.state.ky.us), right now Louisville teachers are challenged to find the time and other support they need to redesign their teaching this way.
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