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New Web Page Coming

Well, in the next few weeks, we should be launching a new website that incorporates both our older website and this discussion forum all in one, hopefully easier to use site! I’ve got a great webpage designer working on it.

Hopefully download speeds will be quicker (and more reliable). We also plan to have a password protected part of the site where teachers can share assessments with other teachers. I know, I know, another password. Hopefully we can make it a common one and something that we all can remember. More on that soon to come.

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Shipping Information

Hello Customers of eMATHinstruction,

We continue to send out answer key CDs each day as soon as we get orders for them or that include them. The workbooks, those have more of a lag time. My great printers at NetPublications in Poughkeepsie, New York, are working tirelessly to get these things printed, packaged, and out the door.

The latest timeline is as follows:

1. If your district got me the order before August 15th, then the books are shipping today and should get to you by tomorrow (August 26th) or Thursday (August 27th).

2. If your district got me an order for workbooks after the 15th, but before today, those start to go into production soon. They will ship on or before 9/9/2014, but that still leaves you at least the first week without the books. Sorry about that! Consider copying the first two weeks from this site.

Email me at [email protected] if you have questions about the status of your order. I’ll always give you the best information that I have.

Best,

Kirk

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The Start of School is at Hand

Hello All,

Well, we have our first couple of days of professional development next week at Arlington (the 97th largest high school in America). This week for me is full of all sorts of fun stuff. I get to catalogue all of the supplies that came in over the summer, make sure all calculators have batteries that work, create list upon list to help teachers know who is teaching the same courses, who has prep which periods, etcetera. This on top of whatever right before the year begins surprises crop up. For a department of 25 math teachers teaching 23 math courses, this constitutes a lot. And I’m still on “vacation.”

But, I’ve also been trying to organize this site into as convenient of a discussion forum as possible. I want to thank Benjamin Kirk from Ithaca High School for giving me many suggestions as far as organizing the site.

Right now I am putting up a post for each lesson. I am categorizing these posts by unit, so it should be super easy to find a particular lesson that you might want to comment on/give suggestions on, or ask a question about. Right now you have to leave a username and an email in order to leave a comment. For those of you who know me, you know that any emails submitted would never end up being distributed to third parties.

For each lesson, I am leaving a very short blurb about my thinking and feelings on the lesson. I could probably write an entire page about each lesson, but don’t have the time, as I’m sure many of you can appreciate.

Click here to link to the Unit #1 Discussion Page

For now, take care all and enjoy your last days of summer. Remember how beautiful fall can be and how much fun it will be to meet all of your new students.

Best to all!

Kirk

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Orders and Browsers

Hey All,

Well, we placed the first round of PO orders that we’ve received to our printers yesterday. They are quickly creating the CD’s that have the answer key and text on them (both in pdf and in Word). So, those will probably be shipped out in the middle of next week. The workbooks will be heading out by the end of next week and will arrive in the last week of August. Sorry they couldn’t be there sooner.

Warning: Any PO for workbooks that I receive from now until the end of August will most likely not get there until after Labor Day weekend. Be prepared to photocopy the first few lessons from this website or our original emathinstruction site.  Check with your business offices or send me an email to check. Orders of only the answer key will still get to you before Labor Day even if they arrive in the coming weeks.

On the browser issue. I continue to find that Chrome does not work well in terms of either this site or the original site. I just downloaded the most recent version of Firefox and it works great for both seeing this site, downloading files from it, and downloading from the original site. Internet Explorer has worked well for both all along.

Take care and continue to enjoy summer. Kirk

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A New Way to Share

Hey Friends of eMATHinstruction. I’m trying to find the best platform for teachers to share thoughts about the lessons in the curriculum. I’m experimenting with this new website on WordPress and think it has great possibilities. Ben Kirk, a math teacher at Ithaca High, gave me this suggestion and I wanted to thank him for it. Hopefully I will use it to its best ability. Right now I am setting up discussion topics by Unit so that people can post comments about individual lessons within the units. I’ll be spending time in August trying to come up with the most efficient system. If you have any thoughts or experience with WordPress, please consider replying to this post to give me advice.

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Trying a Lesson and Video

Hey all. I’m new to this blogging thing, so please excuse early hiccups and whatnot. I’m posting the first lesson here along with the YouTube video, I think. I’m hopeful that this then will give people a chance to comment on either, or both. Let’s see what happens.

The worksheet:

CCAlgI.Unit #1.Lesson #1.Rates, Patterns, and Problem Solving

The video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c8nhhoR7bU

 

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Building a Better Common Core Algebra I

So, this is my first blog post on our new discussion site. Many of you will be using the Common Core Algebra I curriculum this year that I wrote over many nights in the winter of 2013-2014. It is an imperfect text, and always will be. But, it can be made better through lesson study, comments, suggestions, and sharing. I believe that we can make a successful transition to the Common Core at the high school level with the input from practitioners around New York State and the country. I hope that you will join me in finding ways to build a better Common Core Algebra course.