MED 300/308
Assignment #9
Due Thursday 10/25

1. In class you were given the article from NCTM's Teaching Mathematics in the Middle School titled "Moving Students to 'the Why?'". Figure 1is a task you should complete prior to reading the article in order to make more sense of the development of justification. The article also introduces the CLEAR and RACE frameworks for assessing student work. Jot down a few thoughts as to the practical use of these instruments.

2. In Chapter of our text, Groth discussed several reform curricula from the 90's that were problem-based and were written to bring about a vision of mathmatics instruction that sharply contrasted with more traditional approaches. The Core-Plus Mathematics Project was one of the high school curricula and featured a number of practices that are today considered central to good instruction. The Core-Plus Implementation Guide (distributed in class) provided helpful advice to teachers that were trying to establish problem-based environments that relied on cooperative learning. Please read the guide and make a list of five practices regarding cooperative learning that will be appropriate for you to put in place when you are teaching. Also note the discussion of grading- from specific student work with rubrics as well as holistically and what to include when assigning grades. Since this is something that is not far off for you, make some decisions about what you would want to include in your grades. My son's current math class has 90% of his grade based on quizzes and tests with the remaining 10% homework. While this is clear and easily understood, it may be the case that there should be more included. We'll discuss your plans in class but please write them on paper. This can be done on the same paper as the five cooperative learning practices and the Clear and Race thoughts from #1 above.

3. Lastly, please complete Problem Sets 13-15 along with the associated homework tasks. These are the problems that Mr. Garbacz's class will be working on in the coming week. Problem 1 on PS#13 involves the infamous ASS criteria for congruence. This is probably best illustrated not by static drawings on paper but with the use of a dynamic geometry environment such as Geogebra or Desmos. Create such a sketch in one of these environments that you'll be able to share in Mr. Garbacz's class when going over this problem. We'll share these in class so please have access to the file on Thursday.