New Math Program for Grades 6-8

Beginning this fall students in in grades 6-8 will have a new math program.  Pearson’s digits is a comprehensive middle grades math program that offers instructional content designed both to optimize student engagement and personalize learning.  Digits meets the State of Michigan Standards and provides a balance of explicit and guided instruction.

Teachers will utilize interactive materials from the program to allow for individual, small group and whole group instruction and to provide personalized interventions and enhancement of learning.  Student resources include write-in companions as well as access to on-line lessons, practice and personal study plans.

Teachers will be receiving professional development on the new program prior to the start of school and throughout the school year.

Focus Areas for Grade 6

·      Connecting ratio and rate to whole number multiplication and division and using concepts of ratio and rate to solve problems

·      Completing understanding of division of fraction and extending the notion of number to the system of rational numbers, including negative numbers

·      Writing, interpreting, and using expressions and equations

·      Developing understanding of statistical thinking

Focus Areas for Grade 7

·      Developing understanding of and applying proportional relationships

·      Developing understanding of operations with rational numbers and working with expressions and linear equations

·      Solving problems inv9olving scale drawings and informal geometric constructions, and working with two- and three-dimensional shapes to solve problems involving area, surface area, and volume

·      Drawing inferences about populations based on samples

Focus Areas for Grade 8

·      Formulation and reasoning about expressions and equations, including modeling an association in bivariate data with linear equation, and solving linear equations and systems of linear equations

·      Grasping the concept of a function and using functions to describe quantitative relationships

·      Analyzing two- and three- dimensional space and figures using distance, angle, similarity, and congruence, and understanding and applying the Pythagorean Theorem