Day 0 - Critical Issues in Mathematics Education (MSRI 2013)

The Critical Issues in Mathematics Education Workshop 2013 at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute began yesterday evening.  This year's topic is Assessment of Mathematical Proficiencies in the Age of the Common Core.  The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for mathematics can be found at http://www.corestandards.org/Math, and the workshop's website is http://www.msri.org/web/msri/scientific/workshops/show/-/event/Wm9625.  There are lots of interesting people here: Deborah Ball, Hy Bass, Bill McCallum, Keith Devlin, and Bob Moses to name a few, but the majority of the attendees are university faculty and K-12 teachers.

After introductions and an overview of what we will be trying to accomplish during the workshop, Deborah Ball interviewed Andrea, a bright 11 year-old, for almost an hour.  Among other topics, Deborah asked questions to find out Andrea's understanding of fractions.  My hope that is that there will be a video available at some point.  Similar videos are available elsewhere.

We broke into our individual working groups during the last part of the evening.  Each group is charged with writing assessment items or protocols for the CCSS.  My group will work on formative assessment for grades 6-8 and high school.  I am not sure that we came to any great conclusions during out 30 minute breakout session last night other than getting to know each other.