If you don’t have social media accounts, that’s okay, too! Our new Social Media blog category will take care of that. On Fridays, we’ll be sharing the links from the current week here on the blog.

Links from 05/13 – 05/18/2012: 

•  “What Exactly is ‘Understanding?’ And How Do We Assess It?” from Edutopia
•  “Why We Should Never Fear Failure” from MindShift
•  “6 Classroom Management Tips Every Teacher Can Use” from NEA
• “At a Bronx Middle School, a Day of Buying and Selling” from SchoolBook

And in case you missed this week’s Big Ideas Math post:

• Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium

Have a wonderful weekend!

By the 2014-15 school year, the consortium, comprised of educators, researchers, and members of community groups, will have built an assessment which will measure student readiness for college and/or careers. Currently there are 29 states who have agreed to join the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, either as a governing or as an advisory member.

In addition to being aligned to the CCSS and the CCMP, the Smarter Balanced Assessment will include more than just multiple choice responses. The test will also include short constructed responses, extended constructed responses, and performance tasks which will ask students to demonstrate and apply their knowledge to real-world situations.

The assessment will make use of CAT, computer adaptive testing, which will allow districts to get feedback much more quickly and accurately than current state tests allow, and will offer the ability to track student progress over time.

Because the test is being administered online, the Smarter Balanced Assessment will include technology-enhanced items, designed for the student to interract with the computer to solve a problem or mathematical situation.

Teachers will have the ability to give students interim tests throughout the school year as both formative and summative assessment tools. Included will be an online reporting system, which will give teachers, administrators, and parents feedback on student growth and achievement.

For more information about the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, visit http://www.smarterbalanced.org.

In case you missed any of these great links, here is a roundup for this past week.

Links from 05/5 – 05/11/2012:

• Celebrate National Teacher Day (May 8) with these ideas and activities from National Education Association 
• A survival guide and resources for new teachers from Scholastic
• “The Seven Myths of Instructional Rigor” from Educational Issues at Suite 101
• “10 Easy Ways to Teach Students About Saving Money” from We Are Teachers 

Also, don’t forget about the posts from the Big Ideas Math blog this week!

• The PARCC Assessment
• Watch Dr. Ron Larson on Lifetime’s The Balancing Act 

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend from the Big Ideas Math team!

PARCC, The Partnership for Assessment for Readiness for College and Careers, is a consortium of states working together to develop a common set of K-12 assessments. The goal is to dramatically increase the rates at which students graduate from high school prepared for success in college and the workplace.

It will provide students, educators, policymakers and the public tools needed to identify whether students are on track for postsecondary success and where gaps need to be addressed before students enter college or the workforce. These new assessments will assess the full range of the Common Core Standards, both content and practices.

The assessment system will be comprised of four components.

• Two summative, required assessment components designed to:

- Make “college- and career-readiness” and “on-track” determinations,

- Measure the full range of standards and full performance continuum, and

- Provide data for accountability uses, including measures of growth.

• Two non-summative, optional assessment components designed to:

- Generate timely information for informing instruction, interventions, and professional development during the school year.

- An additional third non-summative component will assess students’ speaking and listening skills.

Assessments will be computer based and will be graded via computer scoring and human scoring.  PARCC assessments will begin during the 2014-15 school year.

The Balancing Act segment focuses on the recent educational curriculum shift to the Common Core State Standards.  To assist parents in understanding Common Core, Dr. Larson explains both the concept behind the standards as well as how they are implemented in the Big Ideas Math program.

The Common Core State Standards and the Mathematical Practices are ushering in a new way to teach mathematics. We are excited to be part of this movement with our Big Ideas Math series. Thank you to The Balancing Act for having us on your show!

A second airing of the entire The Balancing Act episode will air on June 20, 2012.

We also made friends with Eli, the founder of Desmos, a free online graphing calculator. This amazing free resource is a wonderful tool for the classroom, home, or wherever you or your students might need a graphing calculator.

We will be sharing more about Desmos in the future, so stay tuned!

We received an abundance of praise from our current Big Ideas Math users, and excitement from those that were new the program. It was fantastic to see such enthusiasm surrounding Big Ideas Math from amazing educators and professionals.

In case you missed the conference or our booth, we have some photos to share:

A glimpse of our booth displaying the Big Ideas Math books and website:

Math coach Michelle Voelker with our Big Ideas Math Consultant Lisa Goldsmith:

A happy Big Ideas Math teacher asking for Denise McDowell’s autograph:

Once that issue was all squared away, setup was smooth sailing. The monitor, which we’ll be using to showcase our digital components and tools, was delivered:

Now, the team is currently working hard to finish setting up the booth:

Come by and say hello if you’re attending the NCTM 2012 Annual Meeting! We’d love to see you!

To vote for your school and describe why you should win, visit The Balancing Act’s Dream School Challenge sweepstakes page.

Big Ideas Learning will be in Booths 428/430 in the exhibit hall, so make sure to stop by and see us! We will be displaying the regular and compacted pathways of our Big Ideas Math series. You can also learn more about Big Ideas Math at the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt booth.

If you are not currently a NCTM member, you might consider joining this fantastic organization. NCTM membership is affordable and offers you activities, lessons, and other resources, as well as professional development and grant opportunities.