Our sixth graders recently experienced a series of lessons from Illustrative Math. We played in the “sandbox” by delving into Unit 6 Expressions and Equations, Lessons 6.1- 6-11. One huge eye-opener for me was the emphasis on equivalence. Since the expressions/equations unit we’ve taught in the past is very procedural based one-step equations, the IM lessons made me think much more deeply about the math. It made the students think more deeply too.
Adapting IM to fit our needs
Since our current curriculum emphasizes solving one-step equations, we embedded more rote practice than what IM provides in the unit. But we so fell in love with IM’s emphasis on equivalence we modified their end of unit assessment to include more problems of this nature. For lessons 6.1-6.11 we created a Socrative review activity based on problems similar to the upcoming assessment. Feel free to modify it to fit your needs. As an aside, there is a growing repository of teacher created resources that can be found here.
To give you an idea of what I was most impressed with, I hastily tweeted out this question (don’t laugh at the misuse of the word illicit. I meant elicit! I’m human!)
I appreciate @mathminds’ feedback as well as @geonz’s who provided additional insights.
For our students, one lesson that might require future adaptation is Lesson 6.9 Distributive Property 1. Students struggled completing the table. Either they needed more time (our periods are 41 minutes long) and we rushed it, or more scaffolding is needed. Perhaps we’ll get some advice from the IM Professional Development we’ll receive this summer.
One reason we are dabbling with IM’s curriculum is to identify resources that can supplement our teacher created curriculum. Frankly, after experiencing IM’s lessons, I would be in favor of letting go of what we’ve worked so hard to create.
Curiouser and Curiouser 