Illustrative Mathematics, the district’s new math curriculum, has an extensive collection of materials designed to help family members support students as they encounter new concepts throughout the school year and build mathematical understanding. Links to these family support materials can be found in Mr. Stephens’s Saturday Blue Jay Line-up, one for fifth grade and another for grades 6-8.
At last week’s PTSO meeting, MNPS Director of Mathematics (and West End parent) Jessica Slayton gave a brief overview of the available support materials and described some changes that are being considered to make them more useful to parents. First, the district plans to provide translations in additional languages. Second, instead of presenting all of the information for a particular unit on a single web page, as is currently the case, the content could be reformatted and broken into smaller chunks.
So, for example, let’s say that your sixth grader comes to you with a question about her homework. You determine (from Schoology or the Assignment Calendar section of the Line-up) that tonight’s homework covers lesson 7 of unit 5. Currently, clicking the link in the Line-up takes you to this page:
Not seeing lesson numbers on this page, you click on “Family Support Materials” under unit 5, which takes you to this page.
Here, starting on page 2, the same information has been reformatted to make it easier to drill down to the lesson your student needs help with.
The district is interested in hearing from parents about these proposed changes and any other suggestions for improvement you may have. Click here to provide your feedback.
