End 2.0 MCPS math curriculum. List complaints about specific problems.

[Anonymous]

This thread is set up to collect specific complaints about 2.0 MCPS math curriculum.
I would like people to identify the exact worksheet and explain the issue.
If we can get enough specific problems, we can approach the Board.
Also I will include a nice description of the drawbacks of the curriculum that came from another thread.

[Anonymous]

"
This probably should just be it's own thread as OP didn't want to rehash. I've responded to OP above.

I also have a son who is finishing Alg I this year. The curriculum is function based and qualitative at the expense of computation. It's very much about questions like what does f(x + b) look like. This is fine, but it's a level of abstraction that students aren't ready for. Not because they can't understand, they actually get by pretty well with translating and reflecting graphs, but because they don't have the computational experience to appreciate it and without those skills when will this qualitative understanding be useful?

So you don't want anecdotes but that's my easiest entry point. By the time my older DC got to pre-calc this year, she was very good at things like identifying if the graph of a function is even or odd. (A concept I think I wasn't introduced to until college and shortcutting series expansions, but when I did need it, it could be defined in a moment without motivation.) And even so, she hadn't been taught the quantitative definitions for even and odd and been asked to work with those, i.e., f(-x) = f(x) and f(-x)= -f(x). So that is a skill she had that was different from my experience.

However, she couldn't find a common denominator for two rational functions, e.g. 1/x + 1/(x+3) = (2x+3)/(x^2+3x). (She could do it for two fractions, but her comfort level with manipulating variables abstractly wasn't there because she'd done very little of this over the past three years and even arithmetic hadn't been reinforced in a while.) This was something she had to quickly brush up on. Basically to make use of what she had learned in the prior three years she needed a crash course in traditional high school math.

And this is completely turned on it's head. The traditional approach is to take the understanding from ES arithmetic and turn that into abstract computation and then once abstract computation is in place including ugly functions like roots and logs, and trig, apply that understanding to functional abstraction in pre-calc. Pushing those concepts into the earlier classes at the expense of computation, accomplishes nothing.

But here's the thing, it's actually insidious to flip this on it's head and turn math into nothing but qualitative discussions. Because the students sound like they're learning advanced concepts and if they are weak on computation, they aren't being confronted. The only trouble is the teachers aren't that well versed in functional considerations and we're left with a gobbledegook of edu-speak and high-minded math and tests that are graded more subjectively than an English essay.

So that's my rant take it for what you will. I'm a math person, I don't like arguing against introducing concepts that I am absolutely passionate about, but the pendulum has swung too far on this. I'm also concerned that even the parents who have a technical background either don't have the energy to get to the bottom of what's different in this curriculum or they may have students who are already so well prepped at home, they don't aren't having issues. It doesn't help that the only reference is disorganized packets that no one would tackle willingly."

[Anonymous]

Yet elementary school parents are saying kids are going way too slow on the basics their kids already know.

[Anonymous]

Here are some examples of the quality of story problem writing without a published textbook. (Algebra 1, unit 1, topic 3 packet, pp 25-29)

Sabrina brings a Hershey’s chocolate bar to her 3rd period math class. She snaps the bar in half and gives one half to her BFF Yarely. Then everyone sees it and wants a piece. Sabrina is good at saying “no” but Yarely is not. She decides to divide her half of the bar in half and give that half to Steven. Then John attacks Steven, wanting half of his piece. Then, Isaiah grabs John’s piece, rips it in half and eats it. How much of the chocolate bar does Isaiah get?

At 11:00 a.m., Sally leaves a serving of yogurt on a table. The number of bacteria in the yogurt at that time is 1. The number of bacteria in Sally’s yogurt increases by a factor of 4 every minute. Three minutes later, at 11:03, Lupe leaves a serving of yogurt on a heater. The number of bacteria in Lupe’s yogurt at that time is 1, but due to the increased temperature, the bacteria increases by a factor of 8 every minute.
At what time will the number of bacteria in each yogurt be the same?

At noon, a computer virus infects 1 kilobyte of a computer’s memory. Every minute thereafter, the number of kilobytes infected triples (is multiplied by three). At twelve minutes after noon, a much worse computer virus infects 1 kilobyte of another computer’s memory. Each minute thereafter, the number of kilobytes infected in that computer is multiplied by nine. When will the number of kilobytes infected be the same in both computers?

You bought two loaves of bread from the grocery store, one rye and one sourdough. When you got home, you realized the sourdough bread had one sq mm of mold on it. You measured to find the mass of mold tripled each day. The rye bread began to grow mold on the fifth day. You measured to find the mass of mold grew by a factor of nine each day. When will the masses of mold be the same on each loaf of bread?
Create a table to display your solution. Solve the word problem using equations to see if you get the same answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here are some examples of the quality of story problem writing without a published textbook. (Algebra 1, unit 1, topic 3 packet, pp 25-29)

Sabrina brings a Hershey’s chocolate bar to her 3rd period math class. She snaps the bar in half and gives one half to her BFF Yarely. Then everyone sees it and wants a piece. Sabrina is good at saying “no” but Yarely is not. She decides to divide her half of the bar in half and give that half to Steven. Then John attacks Steven, wanting half of his piece. Then, Isaiah grabs John’s piece, rips it in half and eats it. How much of the chocolate bar does Isaiah get?

At 11:00 a.m., Sally leaves a serving of yogurt on a table. The number of bacteria in the yogurt at that time is 1. The number of bacteria in Sally’s yogurt increases by a factor of 4 every minute. Three minutes later, at 11:03, Lupe leaves a serving of yogurt on a heater. The number of bacteria in Lupe’s yogurt at that time is 1, but due to the increased temperature, the bacteria increases by a factor of 8 every minute.
At what time will the number of bacteria in each yogurt be the same?

At noon, a computer virus infects 1 kilobyte of a computer’s memory. Every minute thereafter, the number of kilobytes infected triples (is multiplied by three). At twelve minutes after noon, a much worse computer virus infects 1 kilobyte of another computer’s memory. Each minute thereafter, the number of kilobytes infected in that computer is multiplied by nine. When will the number of kilobytes infected be the same in both computers?

You bought two loaves of bread from the grocery store, one rye and one sourdough. When you got home, you realized the sourdough bread had one sq mm of mold on it. You measured to find the mass of mold tripled each day. The rye bread began to grow mold on the fifth day. You measured to find the mass of mold grew by a factor of nine each day. When will the masses of mold be the same on each loaf of bread?
Create a table to display your solution. Solve the word problem using equations to see if you get the same answer.

Can you specify what you think is wrong with this type of problem for an algebra 1 class, and perhaps how the problem should be tweaked to satisfy your concern? That would be helpful to me.

[Anonymous]

KInd of wordy..but otherwise seem like algebra problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:KInd of wordy..but otherwise seem like algebra problems.

Agreed. Looks good to me. Actually looks interesting.

What am I missing?

[Anonymous]

My only problem with it, is that I have no book or site where I can refer to how the problems are approached and help my child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My only problem with it, is that I have no book or site where I can refer to how the problems are approached and help my child.

Unless your child missed class, I assume they would be able to come up with a few key words. Otherwise I am not a math person but I am about to google "algebra exponential increases" and see what came up.

[Anonymous]

Why should we have to Google and spend time deciphering and evaluating which site approaches the concept clearly? That shouldn't be a parent's job. There should be some sort of reference provided by MCPS.

[Anonymous]

A reference would be helpful. But that doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the word problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should we have to Google and spend time deciphering and evaluating which site approaches the concept clearly? That shouldn't be a parent's job. There should be some sort of reference provided by MCPS.

Most people refer to the internet before they go go a book in 2017. We like that on the Iinternet you can read 3 explanations and find the one that makes the most sense. Just be c a u see it is in a book doesn't mean it would be clear toe everyone.

[Anonymous]

But wouldn't a reference provided by MCPS be a better place for a student to start without parent help? Or is the answer that a middle or high school student should have the skills to evaluate which explanation on the Internet is most helpful, and practicing those skills is a critical part of the learning process?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here are some examples of the quality of story problem writing without a published textbook. (Algebra 1, unit 1, topic 3 packet, pp 25-29)

Sabrina brings a Hershey’s chocolate bar to her 3rd period math class. She snaps the bar in half and gives one half to her BFF Yarely. Then everyone sees it and wants a piece. Sabrina is good at saying “no” but Yarely is not. She decides to divide her half of the bar in half and give that half to Steven. Then John attacks Steven, wanting half of his piece. Then, Isaiah grabs John’s piece, rips it in half and eats it. How much of the chocolate bar does Isaiah get?

At 11:00 a.m., Sally leaves a serving of yogurt on a table. The number of bacteria in the yogurt at that time is 1. The number of bacteria in Sally’s yogurt increases by a factor of 4 every minute. Three minutes later, at 11:03, Lupe leaves a serving of yogurt on a heater. The number of bacteria in Lupe’s yogurt at that time is 1, but due to the increased temperature, the bacteria increases by a factor of 8 every minute.
At what time will the number of bacteria in each yogurt be the same?

At noon, a computer virus infects 1 kilobyte of a computer’s memory. Every minute thereafter, the number of kilobytes infected triples (is multiplied by three). At twelve minutes after noon, a much worse computer virus infects 1 kilobyte of another computer’s memory. Each minute thereafter, the number of kilobytes infected in that computer is multiplied by nine. When will the number of kilobytes infected be the same in both computers?

You bought two loaves of bread from the grocery store, one rye and one sourdough. When you got home, you realized the sourdough bread had one sq mm of mold on it. You measured to find the mass of mold tripled each day. The rye bread began to grow mold on the fifth day. You measured to find the mass of mold grew by a factor of nine each day. When will the masses of mold be the same on each loaf of bread?
Create a table to display your solution. Solve the word problem using equations to see if you get the same answer.

Please tell me that these examples are jokes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should we have to Google and spend time deciphering and evaluating which site approaches the concept clearly? That shouldn't be a parent's job. There should be some sort of reference provided by MCPS.

Should MCPS design the curriculum to maximize ease of parents helping their children with problems in math? I mean, never mind about spending time on the Internet to figure out how to help your child with a problem in math -- my mother (from western Europe) would have said that teaching math is not the parents' job, it's the school's job.