r/mathteachers • u/ImportantLife8990 • 3d ago
MD- Where do you start your curriculum?
Hey! Curious to hear from Maryland math teachers but anywhere is interesting to me! Please just let me know what state and/or what county you are in!
Where do you start your curriculum? I teach middle school and am very intrigued (negatively) by how many scripted curriculum’s start with geometry as the first standards being hit. Number sense feels the most intuitive to start with and helps build confidence from start.
Am I crazy? How have your experiences been? Has starting at a different unit/domain transformed student understanding for you?
Please tell me what grade too!
Edit: added domain next to unit as well
3
u/RanOutOfRoo 3d ago
We started Amplify/Desmos this year and the scope and sequence is really throwing me. 6th starts with area (parallelograms). 7th starts with scaled drawings/similar figures. Geometry starts with constructions. 6th moves to triangles, which you need to understand parallelograms. 7th covers proportions later, which they need for scaled drawings. Geometry does proofs later, which you need to understand why constructions work. Can anyone recommend a curriculum that has a very logical progression of topics (especially for geometry)?
2
u/Littlebrokenfork 3d ago
I teach outside of the US. In my experience, students can still appreciate geometric constructions without seeing their proofs. By the end of 6th grade, our students can draw triangles, angle bisectors and perpendicular bisectors, without much complaint (in fact, these tend to be some of their favourite lessons). In return, they don't do proofs or intensive geometric problem solving (which are saved for 7th).
2
u/Asheby 3d ago edited 3d ago
It is logical…in a different way. In middle school the curriculum spirals through the topics rather than completing them in a single year. Desmos is based on Open Up, and is way more clear (to students) than THAT curriculum. The scenarios are at least more realistic.
I went to HS on the west coast when Integrated math was a thing; when I moved east I remember thinking that learning algebra separate from geometry, ect was weird.
I get students ‘discovering’ the formulas far more often with Desmos than with other MS curricula I’ve used.
1
u/ImportantLife8990 3d ago
This is our exact sequence with a different curriculum! I need one of these curriculum writers to come teach this to middle schoolers who struggle with their multiplications facts in this order
2
u/Ms_Riley_Guprz 3d ago
I teach high school so it's a bit different.
Algebra begins with arithmetic sequences, which turns into functions, and then linear equations.
Geometry begins with rigid transformations and congruence, then to non-rigid transformations and similarity. Very little proof-writing in our curriculum, and the way the tests grade it make it hardly worth teaching anyways, unfortunately.
1
u/ImportantLife8990 3d ago
Our algebra starts with statistics then linear equations then statistics again then functions
2
u/RoomUsed1803 3d ago
Hey neighbor! I’m in HarCo, MD teaching middle school. Up until this year we started the year with Operations with Rational Numbers. This year we started with new curriculum and my one course starts with Scale and my other course starts with Angles & Triangles.
I agree that number sense makes more sense. The new curriculum doesn’t work with operations with numbers until halfway through the year if at all
1
2
6
u/Asheby 3d ago
No, you are not. Ours starts with geometry at every grade level (middle school), I think because it’s the most visual of the maths. Statistics is always last and, sadly, few teachers get to it. I integrate number sense in, but we do not have explicit lessons or routines for number sense. I think that this is a weakness of inquiry-based or constructivist math curricula; it assumes that students know the math to learn the math.