EXAMINING A TEXT RESOURCE

Handout 1: What Does the Curriculum Document Expect Students to Learn?

The purpose of any resource is to help students achieve the outcomes for the grade.

Teachers need to have knowledge of the curriculum outcomes and the elaborations of these outcomes and from this knowledge make judgments about how best to use the lessons, activities, and questions in a resource and where it might be necessary to provide additional materials. To help you decide how best to use the material presented in Mathematics 8: Focus on Understanding, it is important to have knowledge of what pre-requisite background material is part of the elementary and grade 7 curriculum and how the content of the grade 8 program is a foundation for many important areas of mathematics.

One of the areas where students need to develop conceptual as well as procedural understanding is ratio and proportion. Developing the understanding of proportional reasoning and its multiplicative nature is essential for further work in mathematics. Before a teacher uses the text to teach ratio and proportion, it is necessary to examine outcomes related to this topic to determine what should be the expectations for students and then determine if the text meets these expectations. These would include:

A8 – represent and apply fractional percents, and percents greater than 100, in fraction or decimal form, or vice versa

A9–solve proportion problems that involve equivalent ratios and rates

B2 – solve problems involving proportions, using a variety of methods

B3 – create and solve problems which involve finding a, b, or c in the relationship a% of b = c, using estimation and calculation

B4 – apply percentage increase and decrease in problem situations

D1 – solve indirect measurement problems using proportions

D2 – solve measurement problems using appropriate SI units

Activity 1: Curriculum Documents

Read the Elaborations for these outcomes to find the answer to the following questions.

  1. What work with percent have students done prior to grade 8? ______
  1. What are some of the experiences students should have in grade 8 to promote understanding of percents greater than 100 and less than 1? ______
  1. What should the beginning work with proportions look like? What should be emphasized at first? What should be the initial approach to solving problems? ______
  1. What is the main understanding that needs to be explored when proportional reasoning is being developed with students?

______

  1. What are the different strategies for solving proportions that students should be able to use?

______

  1. Which strategy for solving proportion problems is not emphasized in the curriculum guide? Why?

______

  1. What are some of the real life problems that students can solve using proportions? ______
  1. What are the 3 types of percentage problems students should be able to solve? ______
  1. What strategies can be used to help estimate the answers to percentage problems? ______
  1. What should students understand about problems involving
  2. 2 percents
  • a discount
  • adding taxes
  • percent increase and percent decrease

______

______

  1. What are some of the types of indirect measurement problems that students could solve using proportions? ______
  1. What should be the function of manipulatives in this section? ______