001Over a decade ago, District 230 had your traditional pathway in math in the math department, having an algebra course, a geometry course, and then a second algebra course that all prepared our students for post-secary endeavors of calculus or more. Curriculum usually needs to be uh reviewed on a regular basis. At the point where we got the new textbook, we had an opportunity to meet with teachers from Stag and Andrew and go through and plan out um the topics we thought we would cover. We compared the topics from this new textbook to our previous curriculum. The staff, the students, and the administration all felt like there was a gap, that there was too much spacing that was taking place in those two pieces of algebra compared to the previous curriculum we were in. um which that
002curriculum was great conceptual knowledge. It didn't embed the maybe the algebraic skill level that we were looking for. I represented Andrew High School for our academic/extended uh math 3 curriculum to kind of lay out what we wanted a year to look like. Then as the meetings progressed, we went through specifically what do we want our test to look like. Just getting together and really discussing what creates a good math curriculum. We came up with notes packets so that we could all kind of be covering a uniform version of the topics, question banks so that we knew kind of where we should land in terms of rigor like you know on this topic we should be at this level of rigor and then we worked towards creating a common final across the district. In the freshman
003year they're introduced to these pieces. Sophomore year they go deeper into those same exact subject areas and then in junior year they go into the deepest amount. These three classes I think are doing a great job of preparing them for that fourth year of math to then you know once again hopefully help them excel in college. We continued with our uh integrated pathway making sure that we emphasized that we are still using the mathematical practices by common core so that we could transfer these skills into other type of life situations. We have a ton of different students in our classes. We have people who are going to go be engineers to people who are going to go join the pipe fitters union and we want to make sure that all of them are prepared the
004same. The curriculum is laid out to give them that solid baseline to make sure that they do have that post-secary success. Being able as a teacher to know how it moves vertically is so impactful. We can remind them of things they previously learned to build on some of those concepts that they've previously learned. I saw things I was like, "Wait, we've been teaching that in math 3 and they taught it in math 2 or oh my gosh, we don't teach that at all and that's a skill we thought they arrived to math 3 knowing." Because we know exactly which targets we need to work on. And because the targets are so um clearly laid out, it makes it easier to work with students who are not necessarily in our own math 2 class. Uh we're
005going to know our students the best, right? We we work with them every day so we know how is best to teach them. What do they need moving forward? What can we bring them to help push them past high school? I believe that the program review process that we use could definitely go into any kind of department. I feel like overall bringing all of these teachers and their expertise together created such an impactful way to deliver the curriculum and kind of we've been a big part of that and making sure that um you know through this process that we've been able to once again hopefully put everybody on the same page. I learned so much from the teachers that who were at that table. I was like, "Wow, I never thought of explaining it that
006way or wow that's such a great way to implement this into another unit or bring this curriculum back to like full circle moment." So I think really it was like a teachable moment for the teachers to bring something new to the kids. The goal is learning. The goal is not to give a grade, right? And so it if our goal is for the students to learn, then this allows us to have that opportunity more.