Posted on January 16, 2020 by Kirk Weiler

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 December 16, 2019 by Kirk Weiler

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 November 18, 2019 by Kirk Weiler

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 October 20, 2019 by Kirk Weiler

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.

Posted on October 15, 2019 by Kirk Weiler

eMath October 2019 Newsletter

October has rolled around with beautiful colors and cold nights everywhere in upstate New York. We’ve been working hard to create add-ons, middle school curricula, and new videos. We’ve also been getting great feedback on both our add-ons this year and the trial version of the middle school curricula. We will have more on that feedback in a later post. For now, let’s get into the latest round of add-ons.

For Common Core Algebra I Add-Ons we have three new resources to share. First, we created a table of contents of QR codes for our videos. This would be a fun insert for kids in their binders so that they can scan a QR code for a given lesson at any point to be taken to that video. We’ve placed this resource at the end of the add-on list. We also bring you the Unit 3 (Functions) Form D Assessment. Finally we’ve also published the Exit Tickets for Unit 4 (Linear Functions and Arithmetic Sequences). I’m hopeful that we are caught up on Exit Tickets enough that we are staying ahead of where teachers are in the curriculum.

In Common Core Geometry Add-Ons this month we have a similar slate of resources. We’ve created the YouTube QR Code list and placed it at the end of the add-on list. As well we have the Unit 3 (Euclidean Proof) Exit Tickets and Form C Assessment. You can never have too many tests with geometry proof to choose from. We hope you like the latest installment.

Common Core Algebra II Add-Ons also include the YouTube Video QR Code List (again located at the end of the add-ons). We then bring you the Unit 3 (Linear Functions) Form D Assessment. Finally, we also have published the Unit 4 (Exponential and Logarithmic Functions) Exit Tickets as well. This was a long unit with lots of lesson, so there are many exit tickets that go along with it.

In Algebra 2 with Trigonometry Add-Ons, we don’t have a QR Code list for you because there are no videos for this course (in case you were wondering). What we do have is a new lesson, a new assessment, and a new round of exit tickets. First, we bring you Unit 3 – Lesson 14.5 – The Vertex Form of a Parabola. This new lesson in Algebra 2 with Trig emphasizes writing the equation of a parabola in vertex form if its vertex and one other point is known. We also offer the Unit 3 (Quadratic Functions) Form C Assessment. Finally, we bring you the Unit 4 (Radicals and the Quadratic Formula) Exit Tickets.

In other news, we’ve just started to record and upload videos for our middle school series. The first unit of N-Gen Math 6 is up on our site. We hope to add many more this month. Watch for them to start going up for the first few units of each course. Speaking of videos, it’s time to get back to recording those. Have a great rest of your October!

Posted on September 16, 2019 by Kirk Weiler

eMath September 2019 Newsletter

It’s September and schools are now in full swing here in New York and around the country. Temperatures are starting to get cooler, at least in the great Northeast. We’ve been working hard here at eMathInstruction on add-ons and on our new Middle School curriculum. So much work and so little time. Let’s get right to the new resources.

In our Common Core Algebra I Add-Ons this month we bring you three additional resources. We received a lot of good feedback on our exit tickets from the last month so we decided to create a lot more of them this month in all of our courses. In Algebra I we bring you both the Unit 2 and Unit 3 Exit tickets. We will continue to put out exit tickets each month, with at least one additional unit added. We also have the Unit 2 Form D assessment for Algebra I to give you more options for this course.

Common Core Geometry Add-Ons for September include exit tickets as well as two other resources. First we have the Unit 2 Exit Tickets on Transformations, Rigid Motions, and Congruency. We also bring you a set of problems on Congruency and Rigid Motions. We all known how challenging this connection can be for students, especially when it comes to expressing their thinking in words. This problem set gives students another four lengthy problems to get this practice. We also have the Unit 2 Form C assessment.

The Common Core Algebra II Add-Ons will start to sound a bit repetitive. We wanted to get ahead on exit tickets for certain courses so we also created the Unit 2 and Unit 3 exit tickets for Common Core Algebra II. We also bring you the Form D Assessment for Unit 2.

A similar scenario plays out in our Algebra 2 with Trigonometry Add-Ons. We have the Unit 2 and Unit 3 exit tickets for this course as well as brining you the Unit 2 Form C Assessment. Hopefully we’ve published enough exit tickets now to last all of the courses until the October add-ons are published.

In other eMathInstruction news, we are busy working on our middle school courses. As a reminder, we have published the rough draft versions of our N-Gen Math 6, N-Gen Math 7, and N-Gen Math 8 courses that are aligned to the Next Generation Mathematics Standards for New York State. This year we will be recording the videos that go along with these lessons as well as creating the answer keys and reviews for the units. We won’t have anything to sell until late Spring of 2020. But, schools are encouraged to use the lessons and homework sets that we’ve published this year on a trial basis. Read all about our plans in the following post:

The N-Gen Math Middle School Series (6th through 8th) First Drafts

There is no busier time here at eMathInstruction than the month of Septembers. It’s when we are helping out schools who are having problems with their accounts, filling orders, creating products, and getting everything set for the school year ahead. Of course we welcome your input and questions. Feel free to always let us know what you think by sending us feedback on our Feedback Form. Until next time, keep working hard and enjoy the oncoming Autumn.

Posted on August 16, 2019 by Kirk Weiler

eMath August 2019 Newsletter

It’s mid-August, which means the start of school is just a few weeks away in New York. In many other states, it has already begun. At eMathInstruction, summer is our busiest season as we fill orders and work on our first round of add-ons for the year. Let’s get into the add-ons for August. This year I wanted to play around with exit tickets, so am going to be releasing a new unit of them for each course each month. Let’s get into all the details.

In Algebra I Add-Ons this month we have three resources to add. First, we have the Unit 1 exit tickets. For all the exit tickets, I created them so that there are three identical problems per page that teachers can photocopy and then cut and hand out to their students. I’d love feedback on this format. The answer keys to the exit tickets are very bare boned and intended for teacher and not student use. We have also created an enrichment practice set for Unit 1 on Mindful Manipulation. This is a follow up to our Seeing Structures in Expressions lesson and challenges kids to use real number properties to rewrite expressions in creative ways. Finally, we also are contributing the Form D assessment for Unit 1. This now gives teachers four mirror assessments for this unit to choose from.

For Common Core Geometry Add-Ons this month we also have Unit 1 exit tickets. Exit tickets for Geometry will become very interesting once we venture into the realms of transformations and proofs, but for now they were relatively easy to create and will hopefully give teachers good feedback on how a given lesson went. We also bring you the Form C version of the Unit 1 Assessment, giving teachers three assessments for this unit to choose from. Finally, we created an enrichment lesson in Unit 2 on Kites. This is a fantastic lesson to do with kids after the lessons on isosceles triangles and reflections. We examine how students can use the nature of kites to reflect points across lines. This is an exceptionally nice lesson to reinforce the idea that points that lie equidistant from the endpoints of a segment must lie on that segment’s perpendicular bisector.

Our Common Core Algebra II Add-Ons for August again include Unit 1 exit tickets. We also bring you the Form D assessment for Unit 1. We will continue for all of our courses to bring you new unit assessments each month so that you can give your students a variety of these and feel confident from year to year about the integrity of your testing. Finally, we also have a Unit 2 enrichment lesson on sets with infinite numbers of elements. This is a really cool lesson (according to a very big math geek) that gets into more complex set terminology and also looks at Dedekind’s test for sets with infinite cardinalities. This is a really nice lesson to do with students who need a little more depth in sets, mappings, and functions.

Algebra 2 with Trigonometry Add-Ons this month include the Unit 1 exit tickets (that’s starting to sound a bit repetitive) as well as two additional resources. First, we bring you the Unit 1 Form C assessment. We also have created a great set of problems on linear regression. The problems mainly emphasize looking at equations of best fit lines for large data sets and interpreting them as well as evaluating their use. This is a good set of problems to simply allow kids to work more with this extremely important topic.

Besides our add-ons, we’ve been busy this summer finishing up the first drafts of our three middle school courses, N-Gen Math 6, N-Gen Math 7, and N-Gen Math 8. I’m not going to rehash everything in this post since I wrote one just a few days ago about the courses. If you missed it here’s a convenient link:

The N-Gen Middle School Series

Most importantly remember two things about these courses:

They are aligned to the New York Next Generation Math Leaning Standards that go into place in the 2020-2021 school year for the K-8 level (the 2021-2022 school year for Algebra I).
We won’t have anything to sell for these courses until the spring of 2020.

We are very excited this coming year to create videos and other materials for these courses. For now, though, I need to get back to the last half of August! Enjoy the beginning of the school year everyone.

Kirk

Posted on July 31, 2019August 1, 2019 by Kirk Weiler

The N-Gen Math Middle School Series (6th through 8th) First Drafts

I am extremely happy to announce that the first drafts of our middle school courses for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade math are now posted on our site.

N-Gen Math 6 N-Gen Math 7 N-Gen Math 8

These three courses are aligned to the New York State Next Generation Math Standards. For those not in New York, these standards closely correlate to the Common Core State Standards. To compare the two sets of standards, read the Crosswalk created by the New York State Education Department. We will eventually give a standards map for both sets of standards.

The Timeline for the Next Generation standards has them going into effect at the K-8 level in the 2020-2021 school year. We are providing the lesson plans and homework sets for all three courses for the 2019-2020 school year in their first draft (or Beta) form for schools to pilot in their classrooms. Schools have our permission for the 2019-2020 school year to photocopy the lessons and homework sets and use them with their students.

During the 2019-2020 school year we will be busy at eMathInstruction creating videos to go with each lesson. Just like with our high school courses, these videos will be of the entire lesson, from the first problem to the last. We will begin to post them during the 2019-2020 school year for schools to begin to use, where possible. We will also be creating unit reviews and assessment items, which will be released in the 2020-2021 school year. Workbooks and teacher subscriptions will be available for order during the spring of 2020 for the 2020-2021 school year. We anticipate pricing will be similar to the pricing on our high school courses.

If you use these lessons, keep in mind they are in their first draft form. There will be typos, grammar and spelling errors, and maybe even a mistake or two in math. We will likely catch most of these errors in our proofreading process, but if you want to let us know about mistakes you find or comments you have, feel free to either use our Feedback Form or email us at Info@emathinstruction.com.

Posted on June 5, 2019June 5, 2019 by Kirk Weiler

Regents Live Review 2019

In just two weeks students all around New York State will sit down to take their (Common Core) Algebra I Regents exam. As we’ve done in the past two years, I will be doing a Live Review session for each of the three major high school math Regents exams (Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II).

I will be going over questions from past Regents exams. The question packets for each Regents are given below. Fair warning: they are extremely long (around 20 pages each)!!!

Common Core Algebra I Live Review Problems 2019 (pdf)

Common Core Algebra I Live Review Problems 2019 (MS Word)

Common Core Geometry Live Review Problems 2019 (pdf)

Common Core Geometry Live Review Problems 2019 (MS Word)

Common Core Algebra II Live Review Problems 2019 (pdf)

Common Core Algebra II Live Review Problems 2019 (MS Word)

We likely will not make it through the entire packet on any one of the nights. I think it really would take about 5 hours to do a complete review.

The reviews will be shown on YouTube Live (Kirk Weiler Channel) and Instagram Live (follow @emathinstruction). The video will be much better on the YouTube Live platform. We mainly will have Instagram Live going for students to comment (whatever it takes to get them to the review ;-).

Can’t wait to “see” you all there.