Saturday, January 8, 2011

High School Math

The site will focus on the high school (and middle school) math progression.
What do students learn? Why do they learn it? Does it make sense? Does it succeed? What should they be learning? How should the be learning it.

These are big questions, high stake questions, and questions that are at some level unanswerable. Nevertheless, we send an entire generation through the high school math system every year so somehow, they have defacto answers.

I'll start slowly building a foundation of understanding. Here as a starting point is a listing of high school math learning progressions.

High school math arguably starts in middle school. Generally around 6th or 7th grade, the students started getting separated into different math tracks. The normal fast track:

6th grade - pre-algebra
7th grade - algebra I
8th grade - alegebra II
9th grade - geometry / triginometry
10th grade - pre calculus
11th grade - calculus
12th grade - statistics

The fastest track goes:

6th grade - pre-algebra
7th grade - algebra I
8th grade - alegebra II
9th grade - geometry / triginometry
10th grade - calculus
11th grade - calculus AP
12th grade - multivariate calculus

The normal track;

6th grade - 6th grade math
7th grade - pre algebra
8th grade - alegebra I
9th grade - alegebra II
10th grade - geometry / triginometry
11th grade - pre-calculus
12th grade - calculus or statistics

A slower track;

6th grade - 6th grade math
7th grade - 7th grade math
8th grade - pre algebra (foundations of algebra)
9th grade - alegebra I
10th grade - alegebra II
11th grade - geometry
12th grade - calculus or statistics