FRANKLIN More than 400 teachers from throughout Middle Tennessee are boning up on their math skills today at a Common Core training session at Freedom Middle School in Franklin.
Kindergarten through eighth-grade teachers are delving into math studies today and Wednesday, and high school teachers will be attending the sessions all week.
The training sessions are part of a massive statewide effort to train teachers to better educate students in math. Teachers will be training in English and language arts in July.
This is the biggest training session in Tennessee history, said Emily Barton, state assistant commissioner of education. And, it is peer led, Barton added.
All Tennessee school districts will be implementing Common Core standards by 2014-2015. The FSSD will implement the standards in math and English/language arts next school year, said Sharon Cooksey, an FSSD facilitator for curriculum and professional development. While there are teachers from Davidson, Rutherford, Williamson County and Murfreesboro City at the sessions, a majority of teachers are from FSSD, she added.
Some critics have been wary of the standards as instituting a lower common denominator rather than a more challenging curriculum, but Cooksey described them as a baseline.
Common Core standards are lists of expectations, or standards that students should know by grade level to be college or career ready upon graduating high school, and it is not a federal initiative, Cooksey said.
“It’s exciting to see teachers all focused on the same content and learning,” Cooksey said. “It’s a new way of doing things, but it’s not dictating how or the resources you need to achieve the goal.”
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