The Standards for Mathematical Practice (SMPs)

The Standards for Mathematical Practice describe varieties of expertise that mathematics educators at all levels should seek to develop in their students.

Below are links to PDF copies of the Common Core State Standards’ Standards for Mathematical Practice in multiple languages. 
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SMP: Spanish translation .........................  Traducción al español (access alternative Spanish translations)
SMP: Chinese translation ........................  翻译成中国
SMP: Filipino translation ..........................  Pagsasalin sa filipino
SMP: Armenian translation .....................  Հայերեն թարգմանությամբ
SMP: Korean translation .........................   한국어 번역​

Student-Friendly SMPs

The Jordan School District in Utah has produced a series of posters explaining the Math Practice Standards in student-friendly language for grades K–6.

You can download the posters by clicking on each standard number:

Standard 1: Make Sense of Problems and Persevere in Solving Them
Standard 2: Reason Abstractly and Quantitatively
Standard 3: Construct Viable Arguments and Critique the Reasoning of Others
Standard 4: Model with Mathematics
Standard 5: Use Appropriate Tools Strategically
Standard 6: Attend to Precision
Standard 7: Look for and Make Use of Structure
Standard 8: Look for and Express Regularity in Repeated Reasoning​

​The younger grade versions of the SMP in student-friendly language are also available in Spanish and Chinese, courtesy of the Jordan School District in Utah.

Standards 1–8: K–6 Spanish
Standards 1–4: K–6 Chinese
Standards 5–8: K–6 Chinese
Standards 1–8 by grade level

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Grouping the SMPs

 

MP1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. MPs related to quantities and relationships, structure and repetition support MP1.
This diagram shows one grouping of the Standards for Math Practice developed by Grace Kelemanik and Amy Lucenta. This grouping forms the basis for their book, Routines for Reasoning which has influenced our department’s thinking. See more at Fostering Math Practices. 
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Another Way of Grouping the SMPs

This diagram shows another way of  grouping the Practice Standards and comes from Bill McCallum, one of the authors of the CCSS-M. More in the Standards of Mathematical Practice, University of Arizona.

Ways of grouping the SMPs: Overarching habits of mind of a productive mathematical thinker correspond to 1. Making sense of problems and persevere in solving them and 6. Attend to precision. Reasoning and explaining corresponds to 2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively and 3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. Modeling and using tools corresponds to 4. Model with mathematics and 5. Use appropriate tools strategically. Seeing structure and generalizing corresponds to 7. Look for and make use of structure and 8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
Key to how above SMPs can be grouped differently.

 

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Other Resources

Other Resources

Inside Mathematics (K–12) has correlated the mathematical practice standards to excerpts of mathematics lessons with multiple examples of successful strategies to launch and sustain these practices. 

This video from Making the Case introduces Common Core Standard #3 for Mathematical Practice: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others, and provides context about implementing the standard in your classroom practice. Reflections from teachers and from math education experts are also included.

View the overlapping standards for Math, Science and Language Arts.

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This page was last updated on October 21, 2022