I joined this session on a bit of a whim. I have taught both Grade 7 and Grade 8 Mathematics.
It is exciting to see that the new curriculum. The number of outcomes have been reduced and reordered. The shift will allow for conceptual understanding rather than rote learning.
We will be able to make the teaching more student centric. There would be time to group projects, challenging questions, discussions. Working in this way we can grow the project focus. We had an interesting discussion about the difference between activities and projects. The activities ended up being smaller chunks with less connections over a shorter period. Then having projects allows for a greater depth and connection building over time with connected concepts.
The Grade 8 curriculum has changed 66% and for Grade 9 there is a 71 % change in the curriculum. . There are many topics deleted or moved to other grades as well as new concepts being added.
A neat quote from Bruce McAskill was that he doesn't like the term Differentiated Instruction because it really should be just good teaching.
While focusing on talking about the Math Curriculum, he also challenged us as to where we are on continuums of teaching in relationship to meeting student needs.
Bringing it all together - We need to combine Differentiated Instruction, Assessment and Support.
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