MathScape: Seeing and Thinking Mathematically

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Pacing MathScape Units

One of the biggest questions that teachers report in teaching a unit for the first time is how to pace the unit in order to complete it on schedule. MathScape units provide opportunities for students to explore a topic in depth, and to gain conceptual understanding as well as skill mastery. For a teacher experienced with using it, the unit takes about 4 – 6 weeks to complete. For a new user, a unit may take 5 – 8 weeks. While this is time well spent, every teacher has to weigh the time spent against numerous demands on class time. Fortunately, there are things every teacher can do to manage the pacing of a unit, and avoid spending much longer than they had intended.

To help you plan the pacing of MathScape units that you will teach, here are three sets of suggestions to consider:

How long should you spend on a lesson?

A lesson is written to take about two or three 45-minute class periods. Some lessons may take longer if you wish to supplement them in some way.

Perhaps the most often-repeated comment from experienced MathScape teachers is, "Things will always take longer the first time through a unit." Teachers tell us over and over again that this is true, and that after their first year with a unit, everything becomes easier and moves along more quickly.

Knowing this, allow for a little more time for each lesson particularly in the first couple phases of a unit.

How do you know when to move on?

Often, a concept is revisited in a variety of different ways throughout a unit, so mastery is rarely expected after the first exposure to the concept. Sometimes mastery is not expected until the end of a phase, other times not until the end of a unit.

There are some things you can do to follow what concepts should be dveloped in each unit:

• Make some notes to yourself about how a concept is developed over the course of a unit. Read the phase overviews and lesson summaries to see when and how a concept comes up.
• Read the embedded assessment activities in the last lesson of each phase, skill quizzes, and/or rubrics for the embedded assessments to understand what level of mastery is expected at each phase.
• Just allow yourself 6 weeks on a unit. Get through as much material as you can during that six weeks, then bring the unit to a close even if you have not completed it. The next time you go through the unit, you will probably get farther.

What should you focus on your first time teaching a unit?

Each MathScape unit involves hands-on investigations to explore different mathematical concepts, often done in small groups or pairs. In order to help students make sense of the investigations and to articulate what they are learning, the curriculum makes use of small group discussions, whole class discussions, and student writing. Any one of these can be a challenge to incorporate the first time you teach a unit.

Some strategies for teaching MathScape for the first time include:

• Allow yourself to have a reasonable learning curve! Choose one pedagogical aspect of the unit that is new to you or challenging for you (such as assessment, writing, discussions, or cooperative groups) , and decide to make that a focus for yourself. Stick to familiar ways of doing things in the other areas. The following year, incorporate things you tried in Year 1, and choose a new area of focus for yourself.
• Talk with colleagues who are also teaching the unit to share ideas and strategies.