Mathspace launches major Common Core content upgrade
New CCSS content spanning Grade 3 to Precalculus
Today we’re pleased to announce a major upgrade of the CCSS content on Mathspace. We want to make it easier for teachers to: understand and track how their students are learning; align our content to school scope and sequences; and ensure a cohesive student learning experience.
At Mathspace, we’re continuously creating new content. This latest update has extended the scope of our existing CCSS material, allows for greater differentiability and makes it easier for teachers to find work specific to standards.
Head of US Curriculum at Mathspace, Andie Hoyt, said that teachers want the ability to reach students at the exact point of misconception. This latest upgrade gives teachers the ability to really narrow in on specific skills and helps them to differentiate students.
Our hope is that this upgrade will give teachers enhanced visibility over how our content relates to certain standards in their curriculum. We’ve made that easier with mapping documents that link directly to the subtopics in Mathspace.
The upgrade improves the grouping and ordering of topics and subtopics in a way that matches how teachers teach the content throughout the year. For the most part, teachers can find the background skills at the beginning of a topic, and the extension material at the end. Subtopics linked to similar outcomes will be more closely grouped together in the same topic.
Teachers now also have the option of selecting ‘combined syllabuses’ rather than just one individual syllabus. The combined syllabuses contain all the material needed for coverage of the standards for either grades 6–8 or 9–12. The combined syllabuses are really useful for teachers wanting to have access to material for a broad range of student learning levels .
The Mathspace team has also added new investigations at every level, from Grade 3 to Precalculus. Ms Hoyt says that these open-ended tasks can help to encourage student conversations and connections between concepts.
When students talk with one another and verbalize their thoughts, problem solving strategies are developed and deep learning occurs. With our investigations students are encouraged to think outside of the box. They are encouraged to share their methods and justify their reasoning with one another.
Hoyt said that the upgrade also includes significant improvements to the Geometry content at the High School level.
We knew we wanted to treat Geometry with the rigor it deserves, but we also wanted to ensure the content was approachable for students. It’s a difficult balance, but our aim is for our geometry content to be approachable and rigorous — to honor the simple beauty of pure geometry, and to inspire students to make their own connections.
Overall, the CCSS upgrade is designed to make it as easy as possible for teachers to find and assign content aligned to standards. Hoyt said:
We know that when teachers cut time by easily creating tasks and assignments, they can then spend more time doing the things that make them great teachers!
For a detailed breakdown of the new content by Grade level, please read more here.