I dream of a day where there exists a completely inquiry-based-social-justice curriculum (and honestly, could see myself working as a curriculum developer in the future). Not because I'm an amazingly creative curriculum creator (I'm lucky if I make enough copies for the day), but because it's just something that I would love to focus on and put all of my energy into.
I have used 2 curriculums thus far in my career: Connected Mathematics Project 2 (CMP2) and Go Math!
Here are my thoughts on these two:
Connected Mathematics Project (CMP2)
To be honest, I really loved this curriculum. Perfect? No. But the best that I have come into contact with. We used this curriculum at my old school, and I miss it dearly.
PROS:
- Inquiry-based and student driven
- Units make sense and flow. They are broken up into "Investigations" that guide students through concepts while increasing in difficulty.
- Rich problems rooted in real-life (easily adaptable to social justice)
- Each unit has it's own paper back instead of one giant text books for kids to drag around
- Backed by the NSF
CONS:
- Little procedural practice (seems crazy to list this as a con, hah. But in my opinion, this is very easily supplemented if you miss it)
- ....Sometimes the
Go Math! Common Core Edition
We have been "piloting" Go Math this year at my current school. I have gone back and forth with this curriculum all year. I initially didn't like it and decided not to use it at all. I then saw that Edward Burger was an author, and decided to give it another go. I tried to really understand it's approach and embrace it in our daily lessons. I quickly became bored with this curriculum and decided to abandon it again, with the exception of using pages for homework.
PROS:
- Lessons are aligned to CCSS.
- Great differentiated resources. Quizzes come in 3 levels of differentiation, as well as practice sheets for each lesson in 3 levels. I also love that each chapter has a "Challenge" page to go along with it to really push your higher students into more complex math.
- Textbook is also a workbook, so students can write in it and rip pages out.
- Real world videos with each Module (read: chapter)
- "Math in Careers" section with each unit so students get more exposure to how math is used in careers
CONS:
- Focus is very much on procedural learning. Gives students exact methods for solving problems, step-by-step.
- Assessments are very long and procedural; lower-level thinking.
- Lessons are segregated and not very engaging
Clearly, my bias leans strongly towards CMP. I found myself and my students much more engaged with CMP, than I do now with Go Math. Go Math has a lot of fluff. At the surface it seems like rich curriculum, but is really a traditional curriculum in disguise.
And so, the search continues. What do you guys think? What curriculum have you used? Which do you like/love/hate?
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