Mathematics/Numeracy

The tasks are interesting and engaging and connected to the Standards for Mathematical Practice. While focused at K-12, the tasks are, for the most part, applicable to adult education classrooms. Some tasks may require adaptations for the adult audience. The tasks are reliable, free tools for instructors to use in overcoming several barriers to learning mathematics that adult students may bring with them to the classroom. These include mathematics anxiety, low self-efficacy in mathematics ability, learning limitations that come with aging, and fixed mindset beliefs. The tasks complement a traditional mathematics curriculum. The actual tasks are intended to be engaging activities that require students to actively participate and work together. In the activities, students are actively involved in trying to score points, win a challenge, or accomplish a larger goal. They involve finding patterns, or attempting a strategy, or developing reasoning to solve a problem. The tasks use the common notation (for example, “MP.2”) to link to the Mathematical Practices employed in a task although it is not always made clear how the task accomplishes this connection to the identified standards. Each task also has a discussion group link which can be used to pose questions or raise issues in connection to the individual tasks. The tasks contain all of the information that is required to complete a task including an opening page that provides directions for starting the task, additional resources that help implement the task and handouts where appropriate. Teachers are able to use the search options described in the abstract above to choose the tasks that are most appropriate for their students.

MAP provides instructors and administrators with excellent resources in implementing and evaluating the College and Career Readiness (CCR) standards in mathematics.  The resource is valuable and well organized and provides very good examples of real-life applications of mathematics. MAP provides teachers and professional developers with honest examples of how mathematics is used in real life.  Built around rich problems or tasks, the Classroom Challenges aim to provide a critical supplement to any curriculum. The lessons are structured as formative assessments and are ideally delivered in small classes or group work classroom settings. Opportunities for interaction with and feedback from the instructor are recommended. The lessons are extensive tasks that provide opportunity for students to demonstrate their thinking, to be involved in some degree of productive struggle, and to be able to show modifications in their solutions based on teacher feedback. The support materials provided to instructors are critical in using the task appropriately with students and in providing feedback and evaluation of students’ work. Student work samples are provided to assist instructors in formulating language or instructional strategies that might assist struggling students. It is possible for instructors to either modify the task or select a subset of questions within a task.  With some careful preplanning, the lessons could be condensed and used in a class that has less time for working with larger problems of this type.  The Professional Development Modules, which help teachers with the pedagogical and mathematical challenges of the lessons, are particularly helpful. The whole site is recommended; the Classroom Challenges are particularly helpful. The lessons have a strong alignment to CCSS and individual lessons are linked to specific content standards and the Standards for Mathematical Practice. The lessons incorporate well-designed formative assessments and provide a wealth of material for instructors. This includes the lesson plan with detailed teacher guidance and a presentation PowerPoint, which includes the task information for students. Though designed for specific grade levels, for the most part, the lessons can be presented to students of all ages. As the lessons are aligned to the CCSS, users can search for lessons aligned to CCR mathematical content standards and specific Standards for Mathematical Practice from the “Common Core State Standards” page http://map.mathshell.org/stds.php Optimizing Security Cameras http://map.mathshell.org/materials/lessons.php?taskid=482&subpage=problemis an example of an exemplary lesson suitable for an adult education classroom.  The lesson involves the placement of security cameras to provide maximum security for a given floor plan of a store. This real-life application problem integrates several content domains and requires strategic thinking and an ability to explain and interpret explanations. The lesson plan includes several student work samples that help teachers understand the goals of the lesson and how it develops the targeted standards. The extensive package of resources connected to this lesson is extremely helpful to teachers.

Steve Hinds demonstrates various approaches:

• Communicating in Math Classrooms
• Deepening Conceptual Understanding
• Resisting the Temptation to Be Too Helpful
• Scaffolding Adult Numeracy Lessons
• Building Deeper Understanding of Decimal Numbers

Each short video also contains background essays and discussion questions.  

This resource supports state and program efforts to implement adult education content standards aligned with college and career readiness to support rigorous, high-quality instruction. Usage of the Math Foundational Units 1 – 4 will strengthen the capacity of adult educators to implement CCR standards to better prepare adult students for success in college and careers. These activities provide the field with opportunities to dig into the CCR standards and explore what it means to adopt CCR-aligned standards in classrooms and how to do so sustainably. Understanding how CCR standards differ from previous sets of standards—and the necessary shifts or advances they call for—is essential to implementing CCR standards well. Engagement in these four units of activities will enable adult educators to identify the most significant elements of CCR standards for mathematics and to determine how best to integrate them into instruction and curriculum. The goal of Units 1 - 4 is for participants to leave with specific ideas, resources, and actions they can implement immediately. Designed primarily for group use, these units also support independent study. The four units should be worked through sequentially. The units can be facilitated during a single daylong training or multiple trainings over several weeks or months. Each ready-to-use unit contains all the materials required to facilitate these training activities, including a facilitator’s guide, an annotated PowerPoint Presentation, and a packet of participant materials. The participant materials include directions, charts, worksheets, answer keys, and other resource materials that guide the use of each unit. The PowerPoint presentations are a digital aid for presenters/facilitators who lead the mathematics training activities. Notes are provided within the PowerPoint presentations to help you prepare for each session. This information accompanies the information offered in the facilitator guides—including the research base, rationale, advice, and other guidelines—to provide the support and guidance you may require.

Although K-12 educators are the site’s targeted audience, Inside Mathematics provides resources that adult educators can use to support the implantation of CCR aligned instruction. To adapt these resources for adult learners, first read the “Permissions” section (under “About”), located at: http://www.insidemathematics.org/about/. Use the variety of classroom-ready resources with ABE and ASE mathematics students. Search for relevant content by grade level as well as by mathematical strand. Also, watch videos of some of these classroom lessons. The performance assessment tasks include student work samples and a teacher discussion of these samples. These can provide valuable insights into student thinking in relation to the task. Each “problem of the month” is divided into five levels giving access into different aspects of the problem and stretching students out into mathematical complexity. These different levels of complexity provide useful scaffolding and differentiation tools for teachers of multi-level classes. Note: When using this feature, attend to the grade level for the problems and determine its appropriateness for your students.