Got Tasks? Part 3 of 3

This is part 3 of the three part Got Tasks Series.

How do you know when something is a good math task?  Posing well developed math tasks to your students involves:

• ensuring that the task is directed to the essential math content and is aligned to the standards
• the task revolves around interesting problems with multiple solutions
• the task provides multiple opportunities for rich math discourse
• the task builds upon student understanding
• the task provides opportunities for students to choose a variety of tools to solve them

By now you are probably asking yourself, where can I find tasks that would fit the characteristics named above.  Well, I have several resources that may help you.  Check out the resources below for a brief description.

1) Illustrative Mathematics

This website is a source of freely available online math content.  There are tasks available for elementary and middle school students. Illustrative Mathematics was started in 2011 as an initiative of the Institute for Mathematics & Education funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  Since 2013, it has operated as a 501c non profit corporation.

Great things about this resource include:

• There are many grade level tasks that are aligned to the Common Core Math standards.
• The tasks include commentary and solutions.
• The tasks can be projected on your Smartboard or Promethean Boards.
• The tasks can also be downloaded to a PDF file.

Select your grade level from the list and then the standard to see all the tasks.

Below is a sample 4th grade task that is aligned with standard 4.NF.A.1

2) North Carolina 3rd - 5th Grade Tasks

North Carolina has updated their wiki page to include tasks for almost EVERY standard for grades 3, 4 and 5.   Download the wonderful tasks by looking on the left side of the web page (for the image below).

Select your grade level and VIOLA….. There you will find a list of the domains and cluster specific standards. Once you click on the specific cluster of standards you will find several tasks that match the standards.

Great things about this resource include:

• There are many tasks that are aligned to the Common Core Math domain standards.
• Several tasks include rubrics for student scoring.
• The tasks can be downloaded to your computer and many are in Microsoft Word format.

Check out a sample task below for 3rd Grade.

All of the tasks above are FREE of charge.  Take a look at them when you get a chance.

Also check out the other Got Tasks Posts by clicking on the links below:

                      

Greg.