Nadereh and I looked at the BC Math 8 and 9 Curriculum documents - her blog post will focus on the grade 8 material and I will focus on the grade 9 material in this blog post.
I was impressed with the introduction to the curriculum documents, especially its inclusion of the Aboriginal perspective section. The introduction really set a tone that, though the material and curriculum are important, it is vital for teachers to recognize learners' backgrounds, attitudes, skills, and learning styles. I liked as well the 'Goals for Mathematics 8 and 9,' because it showed the big picture of what the curriculum is trying to do.
I liked how they included the key concepts for the grade 7 math curriculum to show how that leads into math 8 and 9 (because students might not have got that foundation in elementary school). I think they could've included the general grade 10 topics as well, just to give further perspective of the curriculum continuum, but I understand that once grade 10 hits, the curriculum diversifies, so that makes it complicated.
As for the actual curriculum itself, Math 9 seems pretty similar to what I did when I was in high school, except for the addition of probability. I appreciate that they have started to include probability earlier than grade 12, because I think it is an important, relevant part of mathematics.
I also think that the emphasis of different kinds of mathematical processes was interesting - I think it will help me focus on what kinds of activities I should do in class to encourage these ways of thinking. They even included various suggestions for assessment, which I think is a great way to encourage teachers to break free from the standard unit test.
Good
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