Posted on by

eMath May 2020 Newsletter

May has arrived and so has spring in upstate New York. It seems like only yesterday that we were being hit by a blizzard, when in reality it was actually last week. Neither weather nor quarantine at home with kids has stopped us here at eMathInstruction. We’ve been busy creating the last round of add-ons for the year as well as putting the finishing touches on the first editions of our new N-Gen Math series for grades 6 through 8. More on those later. First, to the add-ons for this month.

In our Common Core Algebra I Add-Ons we round out the assessments and exit tickets for the course. We bring you the Unit 10 (Statistics) Form D Assessment. We also have the Unit 11 (Functions and Modeling) Exit Tickets as well as its Form D Assessment. So many assessments to choose from now.

For Common Core Geometry Add-Ons this month we bring you two new resources. First, we have a Unit 10 (Measurement and Modeling) Progress Quiz. We plan to add many more of these quizzes next year. We also bring you the Form C Assessment for Unit 10.

Common Core Algebra II Add-Ons this month begin with the Unit 12 (Probability) Form D Assessment. We then bring you the Unit 13 (Statistics) Exit Tickets and Form D Assessment.

Finally, our Algebra 2 with Trigonometry Add-Ons this month have four new additions. First we have the Unit 12 (Statistics) Exit Tickets and Form C Assessment. We also bring you the Unit 13 (Sequences and Series) Exit Tickets and Form C Assessment.

Besides a lot of work on add-ons, we’ve also been busy with finishing the first editions of our N-Gen Math middle school books. Our plan is to have the workbooks and answer key memberships available for sale no later than June 15, 2020, so just a month from today. The Teacher Plus Answer Key memberships will include online access to the answer keys for the lessons and homework sets. It will also include online access to Unit Reviews for each unit and access to Microsoft Word documents for each resource. In the late summer we will be releasing some Unit Assessments and will continue to release Unit Assessments for the middle school courses as the school year progresses next year.

We’ll put out an additional post once we’ve gotten everything uploaded and our courses are ready to be used. For now, it’s time I get back to work on them. Take care everyone, stay healthy and safe during these challenging times.

Posted on by

eMath April 2020 Newsletter

So, we find ourselves in week #6 of quarantine here is upstate New York. I imagine wherever you’re at, you’ve been homebound for just as long as we have here at eMath. We’ve had a lot of increase in our work since schools have closed because of how many are moving to remote learning models. Besides trying to keep up with many emails asking about remote learning, we’ve also been busy with add-on creation as well as finishing the first editions of our middle school N-Gen Math series. Let me first discuss our latest round of add-ons.

In our Common Core Algebra I Add-Ons this month we bring you some mid-unit quizzes as well as a Form D assessment. We bring you the Unit 7 (Polynomials) and Unit 8 (Quadratic Functions and Their Algebra) Mid-Unit Quizzes this month. These could even be helpful during these times to use as review assessments or finals review materials. We also bring you the Unit 9 (Roots and Irrational Numbers) Form D Assessment.

For our Common Core Geometry Add-Ons this month we have two new resources. First, we bring you the Unit 9 (Circle Geometry) Form C Assessment. We also offer the Unit 10 (Measurement and Modeling) Exit Tickets. We’ve found that teachers are making creative use of the exit tickets during this period of online learning.

We have three new resources for you in our Common Core Algebra II Add-Ons. First, we have the Unit 11 (Circular Functions) Exit Tickets. We also have the Unit 11 Form D Assessment. Finally, we also bring you the Unit 12 (Probability) Exit Tickets.

This month in Algebra 2 with Trigonometry Add-Ons we have the Unit 10 (Exponential and Logarithmic Functions) Form C Assessment. We then bring you the Unit 11 (Probability) Exit Tickets and Form C Assessment.

Since I last wrote, we have been busy finishing up the first edition of our middle school courses. We have now finished and uploaded all videos for the three courses. We hope that they help with some of the remote instruction that is happening now. We are also working on finishing the first version of the workbooks, the answer keys, and the unit reviews. We will begin to create assessment materials for all three courses in the early summer.

There has been a lot of news out of the education world, including the cancellation of the New York State Regents exams and the delay of the Next Generation Standards implementation by one year. Here at eMathInstruction, we will be facing all of these challenges with our eyes on the future as well as the present to make sure we have materials ready for when and how teachers will need to use them.

Posted on by

Revised Next Generation Timeline and June 2020 Regents Exams

Well, if you didn’t know already, there were huge announcements put out this morning (April 8, 2020) regarding this year’s Regents exams in New York State along with graduation requirements and the timeline for implementation of the Next Generation Mathematics Learning Standards. We wanted to make everyone aware of this information, given that most of us are in quarantine and maybe wouldn’t get this information in a timely manner. Here is the link to the article out of NYSED:

http://www.nysed.gov/news/2020/state-education-department-issues-guidance-graduation-and-course-requirement-changes-due

First, lets start with Regents exams. We already knew that they and the 3-8 tests had been cancelled. What NYSED released today was direction for districts regarding how this effects Regents graduation credits. Basically, NYSED is allowing school districts to give students a Regents credit as long as they pass the course that would have ended in the exam. Here is the relevant passage from the article:

Personally, I think this is an excellent move by NYSED and the most logical thing to do given the uncertainty that we all face. It still gives kids the motivation to pass the course they are in and to try their best during these times of remote learning, but it takes the pressure off of both them and their teachers to prepare them for an August or January examination.

Now, in another bombshell, and I will admit a surprise to me, NYSED also pushed the entire implementation of the Next Generation Mathematics Learning Standards off for another year. This is not only true for the 3-8 courses/assessments but also for the high school level exams. Now the first set of 3-8 assessments aligned to the Next Gen Standards will not go into place until the spring of 2022 and the first administration of the Next Generation aligned Algebra I exam will not occur until June of 2023. Although it is hard to almost fathom, your school could conceivably still be giving the Common Core Aligned Algebra II exam in June of 2026. Yes, you read that right, June of 2026!!! Here is an image of the updated implementation timeline:


Here is the link to the revised timeline:

http://www.nysed.gov/common/nysed/files/programs/curriculum-instruction/next-gen-mathematics-implementation-timeline-revised-april-2020.pdf

Here at eMathInstruction we have been planning on the timeline as it was yesterday for awhile. We aren’t in anyway sure of what this means for our own curricular products, other than we will have additional time to work on our Next Generation aligned high school courses (a whole extra year in fact). We will work to update all of our fantastic members as we solidify our own plans.

For now, stay safe, stay sane, stay at home, and most importantly, stay healthy!!!

Posted on by

eMath March 2020 Newsletter

What a crazy last few weeks it has been. School districts have been closing left and right for weeks or even over a month in order to “flatten the curve” as it is being called. We just posted an article detailing the steps we are taking here at eMathInstruction to help districts as many move to a remote instruction model in the coming days. Part of how we are going to help, though, is by continuing to publish materials in our monthly add-ons and by continuing to record videos for our middle school series of courses. Let’s discuss the add-ons first and then I’ll give you an update on our middle school progress.

In Common Core Algebra I Add-Ons this month we have the Unit 8 (Quadratic Functions and Their Algebra) Form D Assessment. We also bring you the Unit 9 (Roots and Irrational Numbers) and the Unit 10 (Statistics) Exit Tickets. We will put out our last CC Algebra I exit tickets, for Unit 11, in April. I’m hoping that teachers might be able to creatively use the exit tickets in a remote learning situation. Maybe they could be used for informal assessment by the student.

For Common Core Geometry Add-Ons this month we have a few resources for Unit 8 (Right Triangle Trigonometry). First we bring you a practice set of exercises on solving for missing sides and missing angles in right triangles using the trigonometric ratios. This is a straight up fluency worksheet that gives students some nice practice setting up trig ratios and then solving them. We also have the Unit 8 Form C Assessment. Finally, we bring you the Unit 9 (Circle Geometry) Exit Tickets.

This month we are brining you a lot of resources in the Common Core Algebra II Add-Ons. CC Algebra II is a very long course, as anyone who has taught it knows. In order to keep pace with the Form D assessments and exit tickets, we bring you five resources in CC Algebra II this month. We begin with the Unit 8 (Radicals and the Quadratic Formula) Form D Assessment. We then have the Unit 9 (Complex Numbers) Exit Tickets. Of course, that means that we then bring you the Unit 9 Form D Assessment. We then have the Unit 10 (Polynomial and Rational Functions) Exit Tickets and Form D Assessment. We wanted to make sure we got all of these resources to you now, so that if you need them while students are learning from home, then you have them at your disposal.

In Algebra 2 with Trigonometry Add-Ons, we have a similar situation to CC Algebra II. In this case, we bring you four resources, starting with the Unit 8 (Trigonometric Algebra) Form C Assessment. We then have the Unit 9 (Trigonometric Applications) Exit Tickets and Form C Assessment. Finally, we also bring you the Unit 10 (Exponential and Logarithmic Functions) Exit Tickets.

We are coming along on our Next Generation aligned middle school courses. For those of you not in New York State, the Next Generation Math Standards are what New York is renaming the Common Core Standards (with slight modifications). We now have our N-Gen Math 6 and N-Gen Math 7 books done in their first editions, with sample copies available in early May. Our N-Gen Math 8 book is not far behind. We are busy also recording videos for all three courses. It looks like by the end of March we will finish all videos for both Math 6 and Math 7. Math 8 videos will be finished by mid-April. We hope that these videos will help with remote learning this year.

We are starting to receive orders for our middle school products. Although we are happy to get the orders, we won’t be able to process them until late June. Let us know if you have any questions by emailing Orders@emathinstruction.com. We will be posting cleaned up version of all of the middle school files in June as well standards alignment documents this summer.

That’s it for now. I hope that everyone out there, teachers, students, administrators, and parents, all stay healthy and sane during these coming weeks. We can do so much for each other in our communities, large and small, that will help our country as a whole defeat the common threat we now face. Take care and be well.

Kirk

Posted on by

Remote Learning with eMathInstruction

The past week has been interesting and trying.  Recently, we learned of several states that have closed school.  In states such as New York, many schools are now closing for two weeks to over a month.  Please know that we at eMath consider every teacher out there to be a hero. You are likely being asked to prepare to do the impossible, teach students remotely.  We are here to help and support you in any way we can.  We have been getting many questions about how eMathInstruction materials can be used so wanted to send out answers to a few common questions.

Q: Can files be posted?

A: We have several different types of files and will address each independently.

  • Lessons and homework sets that are already available for free download may be reposted though we greatly prefer that you just post the appropriate link to our website.  This will likely be easier for you in the long run.
  • Unit reviews are only available with the purchase of a membership and may be reposted to closed systems only such as Google Classroom. 
  • Answer keys and assessments are only available with the purchase of a membership.  These are our most sensitive files.  These may only be posted to closed systems inaccessible to the broader internet (such as Google Classroom).  We ask that these most sensitive files be removed from the closed system after they are needed. 

Q: Why can certain documents such as assessments, answer keys only be posted to closed systems?

A: There are several reasons we prohibit the posting of these items to traditional websites and web pages. 

  • The first and most important reason is academic integrity.  Students are quite internet savvy.  Students from outside of your school will find the files you post and use them to cheat.  You would not want your students finding answers on the internet so we ask that you be considerate to teachers and students on the other side of the country.
  • eMath Instruction provides a plethora of files for free.  Unfortunately we cannot provide everything for free or we would not have the funding to continue to provide new resources.  If our paid content is posted to the internet where anyone can find it we lose out on the ability to sell our material and therefore continue to do what we do.

Q: How can videos be easily accessed?  Can they be downloaded?

A: All of our videos are on YouTube.  Videos for Algebra I, Geometry and Algebra II are also on TeacherTube.  Unfortunately the file size of videos is quite large and impractical to provide off of the internet.  We understand that many folks struggle with access to internet due to living in a remote location or due to other family circumstances.  At this point, in order to view videos, access to the internet is needed.  Below are the links to our YouTube and TeacherTube channels.  Videos are also accessible from our website.

Q: Can we still purchase books?  How can we get them to students if our school has already closed?

A: Yes.  We have books available.  We can work with your school to possibly ship books directly to students if needed.  Please contact us directly to discuss.  If your school has not yet closed and you think you may need books, your best bet is to order them as soon as possible. 

If there are any other questions you have or any other way we can support you, please feel free to reach out to us.  You can reach us at orders@emathinstruction.com or info@emathinstruction.com.  We are here for you.  We hope you all stay safe and healthy.

Kirk and Shana Weiler

Posted on by

eMath February 2020 Newsletter

Happy February my math teacher friends. Hopefully you all had a long Presidents’ Day weekend. I know many in my part of the state have this entire week off from classes. We’ve been working diligently at eMathInstruction on our new middle school courses and on the add-ons for the high school courses. We’ll talk more about middle school in a bit. For now, let’s get into those add-ons.

In our Common Core Algebra I Add-Ons this month we have three new resources to share. To begin, we bring you the Form D assessment for Unit 7 (Polynomials). We also have created the Unit 8 (Quadratic Functions) Exit Tickets. Finally, we bring you a new lesson in Unit 8 on the factored form of a polynomial. We plan to eventually add this lesson to the Next Generation version of Algebra I, which we will begin to finalize next year.

For Common Core Geometry Add-Ons this month we bring you two resources for Unit 7 and one for Unit 8. In Unit 7 we created an activity where students explore the centroid of a triangle. Strangely enough, the topic of the centroid is not addressed anywhere in the Common Core Standards (easy enough to search the term centroid). We discuss the centroid in Lesson 10 of this unit when we look at the medians of a triangle. But, in this activity students find the centroid, cut out the triangles, and see how the centroid becomes its balancing point (center of mass). We then bring you the Unit 7 (Similarity) Form C Assessment. Finally, we have the Unit 8 (Right Triangle Trigonometry) Exit Tickets.

In Common Core Algebra II Add-Ons this month we first bring you a quiz for Unit 7 (Transformations of Functions). We are trying to round out unit quizzes in all of our courses this year (no matter how short the unit). We also bring you the Unit 7 Form D assessment. Finally we also offer the Unit 8 (Radicals and the Quadratic Formula) Exit Tickets.

Our Algebra 2 with Trigonometry Add-Ons for the month begin with the Unit 7 (Trigonometric Functions) Form C Assessment. We also bring you the Unit 8 (Trigonometric Algebra) Exit Tickets. Finally, we also have a Unit 8 Quiz for after students have completed Lesson #3 of the unit.

Besides working on the add-ons, we’ve been very busy with our three new middle school courses, which are aligned to the Next Generation Mathematics Learning Standards. We’ve been getting fantastic feedback from teachers about the courses and we’ve integrated some of that feedback into the lessons for each course. We are now very close to having both the Math 6 and Math 7 books done in their first edition versions. Unlike our high school courses, we will only be offering our middle school workbooks in a single binding that is both spiral bound and three hole punched. The sheets also have a fine perforation so that students can rip pages out and then place them in a 3-ring binder. Here are a couple of pictures of our N-Gen Math™ 6 book:

If you look very hard, you can even see the fine perforation in that second picture. We’ve designed the books to be as light as possible with lower weight paper. We are always trying to balance that weight issue with the quality of the paper.

Work continues on the supplemental materials for these courses, like the videos, unit reviews, answer keys, and assessments. We plan to have the Teacher Plus Answer Keys and workbooks available for use by July 1, 2020. Until then, we can certainly provide quotes for school districts interested in these for next year.

Well, that’s about it for now. Time to get back to work. Have a great rest of February. May it end soon and may spring be upon us again!

Posted on by

eMath January 2020 Newsletter

Hello 2020! What a start to this new year and (possibly) new decade. We’ve been roaring into the 20’s here at eMathInstruction by making a lot of improvements to our website, including a new(ish) color scheme to make the text easier to read and resources easier to find. More changes will be coming soon that will hopefully make the site even more user friendly.

We’ve also been creating materials for our new middle school courses and for our high school courses. The latest round of add-ons have been posted. Let’s get into those before we come back to what’s happening in middle school.

Our Common Core Algebra I Add-Ons this month include a practice set of problems, a Form D assessment, and some exit tickets. First, we have a practice set in Unit 6 (Exponents) on Negative and Zero exponents. This is a fairly basic problem set, but it allows students who need extra time with these tricky topics some additional practice. We then bring you the Unit 6 Form D Assessment. Finally, we have the Unit 7 (Polynomials) Exit Tickets. We’ve been getting great feedback on the exit tickets. Many teachers are using them as designed and some are using them as warm-up problems the class following the lesson.

In Common Core Geometry Add-Ons this month we have two resources for Unit 6 (Quadrilaterals) and one for Unit 7 (Similarity and Dilations). First, we bring you a practice set of coordinate geometry proofs. This set includes some of the standard problems and also ones that include those unpredictable twists that can often turn up on Regents Exams. We then bring you the Unit 6 Form C Assessment. Finally, we have the Unit 7 Exit Tickets for our unit on Dilations and Similarity.

Common Core Algebra II Add-Ons for this month include three assessments, of various types. First, we have the Unit 6 (Quadratic Functions and Their Algebra) Mid-Unit Quiz. We’ve been trying to round out our unit quizzes this year in all of our courses. We also have the Unit 6 Form D Assessment. Finally, we bring you the Unit 7 (Transformations of Functions) Exit Tickets.

For Algebra 2 and Trigonometry Add-Ons we bring you two resources this month. First, we have the Unit 6 (Polynomials and Rational Functions) Form C Assessment. We also bring you the Unit 7 (Circular Functions) Exit Tickets.

We continue to move along on our middle school program. We’ve been working primarily on four things at this point: editing the text, creating the answer keys, writing unit reviews, and recording videos for each lesson. We plan to have all of these materials, along with the workbooks, available for use on July 1, 2020. And who knows? Maybe even sooner. But we like to be conservative with our timelines. For schools that need them, we can do formal quotes for all of our middle school products.

Posted on by

eMath December 2019 Newsletter

Happy December eMathInstruction users. We are in our last week of classes here in upstate New York before everyone retires for the next few weeks to rest and recover. We’ve been working hard to generate new resources for you, including videos for our middle school classes and add-ons for our high school courses. Let’s get into exactly what we are adding this month.

In Common Core Algebra I Add-Ons we have three new resources for you. To begin, we have a practice set of problems from Unit 5 (Linear Systems) on solving equations graphically. This skill becomes increasingly more important as students get older because of the prevalence of equations that cannot be solved algebraically. We wanted kids to have another chance at practicing this essential skill. We have now added the Unit 5 Form D Assessment. We also have the Unit 6 (Exponents) Exit Tickets.

For Common Core Geometry Add-Ons, we have three resources as well. First, we bring you a new lesson in Unit 4 (constructions) on using constructions to translate points and figures. This is a great application of the parallel line construction and reinforces the properties of translations and their ties to parallel lines. We also bring you the Unit 5 (Coordinate Geometry) Form C Assessment. Finally, we also have the Unit 6 (Quadrilaterals) Exit Tickets.

In Common Core Algebra II Add-Ons, we have one resource for Unit 5 and two for Unit 6. First we have the Unit 5 (Sequences and Series) Form D Assessment. We then bring you the Unit 6 (Quadratic Functions) Exit Tickets. Finally, we also have a new lesson for Unit 6 on the vertex form of a parabola. This is an increasingly important form for students to work with. We supply a lot of practice problems, both theoretical and applied, so that students can see how to model quadratic functions given their turning point and another point.

Finally, in our Algebra 2 with Trigonometry Add-Ons we bring you the Unit 5 (Complex Numbers) Form C Assessment. We also have the Unit 6 (Polynomial and Rational Functions) Exit Tickets. We also offer a Unit 6 Activity this month on rational expression puzzles. These are really “fun” problems where students first experiment with numbers to decide on a pattern and then try to explain the pattern using skills they have learned throughout the rational expressions part of this unit. This is a great activity for extra credit or for a day right before a break.

Besides add-ons, we’ve been busy working on materials for our three new middle school courses. We have been spending our time working on the videos for each lesson. By the end of this week, we should be done with about 50% of all of these with a projected date of late March to be done with all of them. Meanwhile, we are also moving along on the Unit Reviews and Answer Keys for these courses. We plan to be able to provide formal quotes for the 2020-2021 school year in January of 2020. We won’t have sample books until later in the spring, with a target date of May of 2020 for those first books to be done.

That’s about it for now. We hope here at eMathInstruction that you have a wonderful winter break, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Yule, or nothing at all. This is a great time for students, teachers, and parents to relax and revitalize. Take care and I hope that the roaring 20’s start off well for everyone!!!

 

Posted on by

eMath November 2019 Newsletter

Happy November math teachers! Now that we’ve gotten the major candy holiday out of the way, it’s time for the weather to get a lot colder and the days to get a lot shorter. As the holiday season approaches, we are working hard at eMathInstruction to flesh out our new Next Generation aligned middle school books as well as continuing to supplement our high school courses with their monthly add-ons. Let’s get right into those.

Our Common Core Algebra I Add-Ons this month include some assessment items and a practice problem set. First, we bring you a set of practice problems for Unit 4 (Linear Functions and Arithmetic Sequences) on writing the equation of a line given two points that lie on the line. This is an essential skill and fluency expectation at the Algebra I level. We include both standard and applied problems for practice. We also have the Form D of the Unit 4 Assessment. Finally, we also offer our Unit 5 (Linear Systems) Exit Tickets. We were just recently at the AMTNYS conference in Rochester and we heard back from a lot of teachers who are loving the exit tickets. Some of them are using them as Do Nows the day after the lesson, a suggestion we wanted to pass along.

In our Common Core Geometry Add-Ons we bring you both the Unit 4 (Constructions) and Unit 5 (Coordinate Geometry) Exit tickets. My hope is that we are now ahead of where teachers are in each course in terms of the Exit Tickets. We know you need these at the beginning of the unit and will continue to turn them out each month. We also bring you the Unit 4 Form C Assessment. Unit 4, as mentioned, is on Constructions, so take a look at all three assessments we now have for Unit 4 and mix as needed.

This month in our Common Core Algebra II Add-Ons we bring you four items. First, we bring you mid-unit quizzes in both Unit 3 (Linear Functions) and Unit 5 (Sequences and Series). Both of these units are quite short, so we hadn’t written quizzes for them, but we heard from teachers that they liked to have these mid-unit quizzes, even for the shorter units, so we wrote one for each of these (one already existed for Unit 4). We also bring you the Unit 4 (Exponential and Logarithmic Functions) Form D Assessment. Finally, we also have the Unit 5 Exit tickets out for use.

In Algebra 2 with Trigonometry Add-Ons this month we have a practice lesson and a few assessment items. To begin, we have a practice set of problems on the quadratic formula from Unit 4 (Radicals and the Quadratic Formula). This practice set gives students ample opportunity to use the formula in both standard and applied settings and has the kids express their answers in a variety of ways (rational, simplest radical form, and rounded). We also bring you the Form C Assessment for Unit 4. Our final add-on for Algebra 2 with Trigonometry are the Unit 5 (Complex Numbers) Exit Tickets.

In other news, we are working hard on the N-Gen Middle School math series as well as our high school courses. We are spending about two weeks each month recording videos. We will post them as we finish and edit them. Some videos are already up in each of the three courses and we hope to add quite a few more before the Thanksgiving break.

Finally, I’d like to give a shout-out to all of the fantastic teachers, administrators, and general math educators who I met this past week at the AMTNYS (Association of Mathematics Teachers of New York State) Conference in Rochester, New York. It was a long two days for both myself and my fantastic wife Shana, but the conversations we had with teachers were deep and thoughtful. We received wonderful feedback on both our high school and middle school courses. A special thanks and congratulations to Dana Morse, the hardest working (and best dressed) Texas Instruments calculator expert I’ve even met. He brings the fun and received an award from AMTNYS for always being a friend to math teachers around New York.

That’s it for now. I’m starting to record videos for N-Gen Math™ 6 within the next hour, so I need to get back to that. Have a great Thanksgiving break everyone. Get some rest and get ready for the craziness that we know as December.

Kirk

 

Posted on by

Reordering N-Gen Math™ 8 and Middle School Videos

We’ve been getting great input this year on our new middle school courses that are aligned to the new Next Generation Math Standards (coming next year to New York K-8). I’ve had some great conversations with teachers who are using the courses. One of the things I heard from multiple teachers was that they would like to see algebra moved to the beginning of N-Gen Math™ 8 so that equation solving could be a greater part of the geometry units.

One of the new skills that students learn in 8th grade algebra is how to solve equations with variables on both sides. Since our original ordering had this skill taught in Unit 4, we didn’t incorporate it into our Units 1 through 3 (on geometry). We decided to remedy that and move our algebra unit to Unit 1 and then incorporate those algebraic skills into our geometry units (which became Units 2 through 4). Because of this reordering, we had to remove some problems that had been in the algebra unit, but we were able to beef up the algebra in many of the geometry problems.

We also created some new lessons in geometry based on feedback. We created an additional lesson in the Tools of Geometry on angle terminology associated with parallel lines (alternate interior, exterior, same side, corresponding, etcetera). We added a few lessons in our unit on Transformations. One of these looks at congruent angles formed by parallel lines through the lens of rigid motions. The other lesson comes at the end of the unit and gives students lots of practice using algebra to model geometry problems.

One of the very nice consequences of the reordering is that our unit on similarity now comes immediately before the unit on linear functions and graphs of lines. Given that in 8th grade we justify the slope of a line based on similarity, this flow of topics is much more natural. I think the changes to N-Gen Math™ 8 will make it more complete and will strengthen both the algebra and geometry skills of the students. I’d like to thank Elizabeth Agen of Golding Middle School and Beth Goldberg of Linden Avenue Middle School for the feedback on the order of the topics. I had some very good back and forth discussions with both teachers that really got me to think harder about the best sequence of topics in the course.

We’ve also begun to record and post the videos for the middle school courses. It’s going to take us quite some time to finish them as we can only do so many in a day and there’s other work to be done. My hope is to have them all recorded and posted by next spring. We’ll be recording more videos next week and then will need to take some time off for the fall AMTNYS conference up in Rochester. For now, keep watching as we continue to post the first few units of all three courses.