8th Grade Mathematics Fall Snapshot Students began the year with lessons from Jo Boaler’s Week of Inspirational Math. Through short videos and low-floor, high-ceiling tasks, students learned important growth mindset messages to persist with open-ended problems, to embrace mistakes and challenges, and to think visually. During the exponents unit, students applied their understanding of exponent properties to simplify expressions with positive, negative, and zero exponents. We converted numbers from standard form to scientific notation and vice versa, and simplified expressions written in scientific notation. We learned to simplify products and quotients of radical expressions. During our Linear Equations unit, we wrote linear equations in slope-intercept form and played Diamond Collector to practice identifying the slope and the y-intercept. We also learned to write equations of parallel lines, and to write equations using function notation. Students made scatter plots of a set of data and determined whether the data had a positive correlation, negative correlation, or no correlation. We also learned to draw a line of best fit and used two points on the line to write an equation to model the data. We performed a linear regression using the Desmos online graphing calculator and compared the equation found by hand to the equation found on the calculator. We used our models to make predictions by interpolation and extrapolation.
Winter Snapshot To complete the Linear Equations unit we learned how to write linear equations in point-slope form, and standard form. We also learned to write equations of perpendicular lines, as well as vertical and horizontal lines. Students practiced writing linear equations in different forms by creating a design made up of linear equations by hand and then reproducing the design using an online graphing calculator on desmos.com. Since the online graphing calculator gave immediate feedback, students were able to revise equations when necessary as they progressed through the project. We completed the unit by wring and graphing linear equations to solve word problems. During the unit on Solving and Graphing Linear Inequalities, we solved one-step and multi-step inequalities. We solved compound inequalities as well as absolute value equations and inequalities. Considering “or” as a union of inequalities and “and” as the intersection of inequalities, we explored how these words affect the solution set. We calculated the absolute deviation and graphed linear inequalities in two variables. To complete the unit we wrote and graphed linear inequalities to solve word problems, and wrote and solved absolute value equations and inequalities to solve word problems. During the unit on Linear Systems, we solved systems of linear equations by graphing, substitution, and elimination, including situations where students had to multiply one or both equations before eliminating a variable.
Spring Snapshot We completed the unit on Systems of Linear Equations and Inequalities by learning how to solve special types of linear systems that had one solution, no solution, or infinitely many solutions. We completed the unit by graphing, writing, and solving systems of linear inequalities and applying the skills learned to solve word problems. Page 130
BURKE’S PROGRAM SNAPSHOT