The math department at the middle school is in year two of their complete overhaul with the purchasing of a new book series, Go Math. The series comes from the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Series that includes digital interactives and consumable student editions for each student. This program allows students to write notes into their book and provides a personal math trainer to best utilize the recent 1:1 Chromebook Initiative at the middle school.
“We have had some bumps in the road with alignment from our previous math series, but are finding great strides in student learning,” said Jeremy Stedry, 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade math teacher.
Outside of the Go Math series, each class has been finding other interactive avenues to engage their students. Mr. Stedry’s classes are using web applications to their advantage, preferably with the website called Desmos. “It is a scientific calculator, graphing aid, and activity center all rolled into one. It has become an essential tool in our algebra class for finding characteristics of functions and interchanging data into differing forms.” Along with Desmos, the class has also been using the short assessment tools of Kahoot!, Quizizz, and Quizlet. “It makes for a quick, easy, and effective way of seeing where students are at with the material,” stated Stedry.
Jeremy Doan’s 6th and 7th-grade math classes have supplemented their use of the GoMath series by using Compass Learning, Khan Academy, and Prodigy on their Chromebooks. “We’re trying to get the students to learn as many objectives as possible. By allowing them to work at their own pace with the technology available, some of the students are able to move along. We’re also using some of the time from their enrichment classes to supplement with the online programs,” said Doan.
Rachel Garrett’s 5th-grade math classes have been working hard to master the math basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. These four operations are applied to whole numbers, decimals, and fractions. 5th-graders have also been working on multiplication facts. Another change for 5th-grade math is the addition of a math enrichment class. This extra fifty minutes, three times a week will give students a chance to dig deeper into math concepts. Students are able to work at their independent math level by using our new iXL.com program.
“Our goal is to have every 5th grader able to accurately complete 100 multiplication facts in 5 minutes,” stated Mrs. Garrett.