Big Idea, Smart Idea?

Today, we tackle the “Big Idea” which is deemed essential to understanding various mathematical concept as a coherent whole.  We were assigned two major tasks: First, to generate Big Ideas from the curriculum document across grade levels. Second, to formulate Mathematical questions that will satisfy, if not all, at least three overall expectations for each strand for a particular grade level.  Both approaches has advantages and disadvantages.

From the exercise, with the Big Idea approach we seem to develop goals easily, pinpoint good questions, and at the same time differentiate within the actual mathematical content.  However, we experience difficulties in establishing coherence among different strands across grade levels.  On the other hand, the second method is more straightforward since we are used to simply follow the requirements of the curriculum documents.

After the article discussions, I realized I have misconceptions on the implementation of the big Ideas.  I thought the big idea statement is something educators generate from the overall expectations.  From this big ideas we specify the learning objectives and then draw the success criteria. I also realized that this concept may not be a standalone and maybe integrated to our norm of simply selecting specific expectations in preparing our lessons.  If properly incorporated in our lessons, the big idea concept promises a better understanding of mathematics for both educators and learners.

Despite the apparent benefits of the big idea, I still have reservations to embrace this strategy.  Preparation and planning may tend to be challenging considering the amount of responsibilities teachers need to accomplish in a rigid timeframe.  A big idea? Yes, but is it “smart “ too?