Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Choosing a New Math Program

Our county has finally decided to take the plunge and adopt a "Common Core" math program. So guess what lucky me got to do today???? Yes, you guessed it!! Me and several of my staff members got to sit through 7 hours of presentations from many of the math publishers while they tried to  convince us that they each had the best program. It was exhausting!!!!!! And my booty is sore from sitting all day.  I have to go back on Monday and Tuesday and try to narrow it down to our top 3 with other teachers from the county. Then we will choose a program from the lucky 3.  There were parts that I liked about each. It is really hard to tell when you just hear the sales pitch. I need to delve in and use it myself!! Any thoughts on Envision Math, Singapore Math, My Math from McGraw Hill, or Math Expressions from Houghton Mifflin?? I would love to hear any feedback!!


10 comments:

  1. Our district just adopted Math Expressions this year and I completely LOVE it! I know our K teachers are a little frustrated with it bc they feel like there is just not enough and need to supplement quite a bit, but I really feel like it has supplied our kiddos with a lot of concrete examples, explicit instruction, and TONS of review/practice. One bad thing is the program is set up to have a homework sheet EVERY DAY…but I get around sending it home each night by offering it in one of my math stations. There are also some flimsy (ahem, cheap) resources, but I use the whiteboards/manipulatives I own from other programs instead. Otherwise, I can't say enough good about it! Love it! The main author was also a major player in developing much of the Math Common Core Standards, so there ya go:) Don't know much about the others, but there's my 2 cents on ME! Good luck with your choices!
    SweetSchoolMoments

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    1. Thanks so much! I know one program isn't going to be the end all. Should be interesting to see what we go with!

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  2. Our parish just adopted Envision Math this year. The one thing I really like about it is that it has games to go with each lesson {although we did not receive enough book sets for a class set, so we have to make extra copies}. I also like the pacing of the lessons and how the curriculum is grouped with the teaching material. I also like the manipulatives that came with the series. The one thing I thought I would love, but now am not so sure of is the loose text book papers. The student book is not actually a book. The student papers {for K-2} is actually individually sheets for each lesson. The only thing is that when the material arrives it is not separated out for you by each single lesson. It will arrive in packs of 25 by each topic and you will have to go in and sort the papers by each lesson within the topic. Plus in our parish when a student moves within the parish we have to send all consumable books with that student. So guess what, we have to go and pull all those individual papers. It sounded really good in theory, but did not turn out so well actually. The other thing I am not so sure about is some of the lessons seem a little short too me or there is just not quite enough in the lesson. So there is has been several times that I am pulling a lot of extra to fill in my required math time or to give extra practice. Overall I would rank this series as a little above average. It does cover all the common core standards. Good luck making a decision!!

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    1. Thanks for the feedback!! I think this may be the one they are leaning towards!

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  3. I am currently using Math Expressions and it is great for building conceptual knowledge. I've used Envision in the past (not the common core version) and it times it seemed to not be rigorous. Also it was annoying sorting all of the pages for each topic. But I did like the technology component with the little videos. Hope that helps.

    Brandi

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  4. Wow that is a lot to sit through. I am part of our math consult team for the district. We have 47 elementary schools in our district alone. Each district gets to adopt it's own program, the county doesn't have a say. During our consult we got to listen to 3 publishers for only 20 minutes. They had 20 minutes to give us their selling pitch. We go to listen to Envision, My Math, and Math Experessions.

    Of the 3 we are meeting soon to narrow it down to 2. We will then pilot both programs for a year. About 200 teachers throughout the district will receive on or the other. Then the consult team will meet listen to the input of the 200 teachers as to which program they liked and then we will present our top choice to the district. The powers that be will then get to decide the final decision on what we adopt. Adoptions won't be made until the 2014-1015 school year.

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    1. I wish our county took that much time! I hope you get a good one!

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  6. I was on the adoption committee when we recommended enVision math. We reviewed the Indiana edition but then we adopted Common Core and we went with the Common Core edition. Please make sure you get to review the correct addition. They were completely different! If we had reviewed the Common Core version we wouldn't have recommended it.

    It feels like the CC book was thrown together very quickly without a lot of thought into the order in which things were being taught. Our school adopted enVision Common Core 2 years ago. It has NOT gone over well at all. The sequence of the series does not flow smoothly and the lessons are really short. Money is not taught in the enVision books in K or 1 but in 2nd grade they start giving change. The enVision materials never expose them to the coins prior to 2nd and then suddenly they must know all the coins, value, and be able to count on. It was rough!

    The book never teaches subtraction with a 0 in the tens place and needing to regroup from the 100's but it is on the test. We've found this happens a lot.

    The Topics (Chapters) switch back and forth between addition and subtraction and my students really struggled mastering. All of the lessons are VERY short and switch quickly and are not in-depth. Across the district we are seeing our kids struggle. We have parents going to the school board complaining about it and teachers wanting to know how quickly we can switch to something else.

    If you email me at tsouth136@gmail.com I will send you an enVision skills lists for 2nd grade. I broke down the topics by lesson and you will be able to see how quickly things change and the order of the topics.

    Please let me know if you have any questions. I'm not a fan of this series and I would highly recommended going with another.

    -Tracy (Mrs. South)

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    1. Wow! Why do programs always seem to do that. Have you figured out a better order for things? I am sure you are supplementing so you meet the needs of your students. So frustrating! Thank you so much!! I would love to see your skills list. I go back to second next year.

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