I recently started working with my local non-profit adult literacy program to help them develop a numeracy program and I have so many questions!
They purchased the EMPower curriculum and asked me to help them choose what order to use the lessons from the books and how to determine placement for students after taking the CASAS. It's a one-on-one tutoring program, so each student can have a totally customized learning plan. Is there a document that shows alignment of the EMPower curriculum to the CASAS math standards? How have you used the EMPower Curriculum?
We have many volunteers who want to tutor in math, but would like to do some practice in concept areas before teaching them to students. Is there something you would suggest for this?
Any common pitfalls I should look out for while developing this program?
Thank you!
Comments
Hi, Jacque, and congratulations on starting your numeracy program!
I'm sure that is exciting for you, the program, and the students, yet also a bit overwhelming to just get started. Hats off to you for accepting the challenge!
Had your program not already purchased EMPower, I would have recommended that first thing. It was the only math resource I can honestly say I used every single day with my students, regardless of their math level. Some of the reasons I used it so much was that it allowed me to teach math lessons conceptually to an entire class knowing that everyone could participate and be challenged at a level appropriate to them. The Teacher Book (TB) is your lifeline to knowing how to balance a multilevel class and the Student Book (SB) is your essential resource to share activity and practice pages with students. Both the TB and SB must be used in tandem, so be sure you have those available for your tutors and students. The other thing to keep in mind is that these activities are best conducted in small groups, so you might consider ways to have students and volunteers doing one-on-one tutoring come together at specific days or times to work on the group activities and then perhaps split off to do partnered practice from the EMPower pages that accompany each lesson.
Regarding knowing what lessons to teach from which title and for what level of students, you might start with this chart on the EMPower site that shows each title aligned to key College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS). While I do have a resource that shows the alignment of CASAS to EMPower titles, it is for the old CASAS and also does not include correlations to the updated EMPower Plus titles for Everyday Number Sense, Using Benchmarks, and Split It Up. McGraw-Hill was going to update the correlation chart, but to my knowledge, it was never completed. I would recommend starting with the CCRS chart, but feel free to email me if you want the CASAS correlation chart. We also have a video on the EMPower site called Identifying Lesson Content that might be of help. The video is about halfway down the page.
For me personally, I have my favorite EMPower lessons that I taught for specific math content, and I'm sure others in this thread could offer up their favorites, too. In the end, you'd probably have most of the lessons in each book named, which might not be a big help. That said, if you know specific math topics you will be covering, I'm sure folks in the CoP can point you to the best lessons to use in each book to address those needs.
Regarding training up your volunteers to teach math conceptually, it would be great if you could attend some trainings together. I have some ideas in mind, but it might be easier to just setup a Zoom with you to talk through options. If that's something you'd like to do, please email me. I'm happy to help in whatever way I can.
You can reach me at Heidi_Schuler-Jones@TERC.edu.
Hi Jacque.
I agree with Heidi - EMPower is conceptually based but it needs at least pairs of students to work on the topics.
If you want to know your students' grasp of the most basic math concepts (CASAS tests skills), look at this presentation I gave on LINCS in 2016: Number Sense - a simple tool that uncovers it. How students place five non-sequential whole numbers on an empty number line tells how they think about number relationships.
https://community.lincs.ed.gov/discussion/guest-led-discussion-number-sense-simple-tool-uncovers-it
Does the student think about each number as a separate entity with only a general "larger/smaller" sense of number relationships? (Student can only add by counting objects (or fingers) and has to start counting from 1 every time - no "counting on from.") Does the student add and multiply OK, but gets stuck in division, and especially in fractions? (Student thinks about the parts OR the whole, not both parts AND whole existing at the same time.)
The discussion has links to samples and examples in Google docs. The master assessment document and all four sets of number line examples can be accessed from links in the discussion.
You might have your tutors take the Number Sense test as well, as a practice for what the difference is in concept understanding of the person they are tutoring. So many students want to start with fractions when what they lack is an understanding of Whole Number relationships (part-whole thinking).
And contact me with questions.
Dorothea Steinke
numberworks.ds@gmail.com
Dorothea is right!
I would also strongly recommend going to mathreasoninginventory.com -- I did a version of Marilyn Burns' test with students one year and ... wow.
"What's 1000 - 3? Can you do it in your head?" and yes, they can -- by airdrawing the borrowing algorithm. The idea of counting backwards??? With most students, I stopped early becuase pretty much everything was "use procedural algorithm."
(I've also found the "progression videos" that Graham Fletcher has online to be really helpful in figuring out the stages of reasoning folks go through in understanding operations.)
Keep asking questions along the way!!!
In my opinion, we do a disservice when we persist in "oh, let's try to cram some procedures in so you can pass this test." Sometimes we have to compromise, but it sends the message once more that "we don't expect you to understand anything, just cram a bit and pray."
Hi Susan.
I went to the link you gave for the Math Reasoning Inventory. It took me to the publishers website: hmhco.com
I googled Math Reasoning Inventory and Marilyn Burns. That took me to her website. However, the link on Burns' website also goes to the HMH company website. Not free any more (sigh).
Dorothea Steinke
Okay, I browsed too and there are lots of dead links at HMH ..... sometimes the pages are still up there in the background ...
BUT ... mirabile dictu, I think I got something based on it that would do the trick; I'll go through and make it more sharable....
Marilyn Burns confirmed that "Sadly it's no longer available. Old technology made it difficult to maintain. Sigh." BUT ... I found those files. I uploaded as many as I had time to muck with today (and figure out what they were... yes, I can have disorganized files on the computer too...)
You will find a certain number line activity included. https://resourceroom.net/mathInv/ THIS is NOT a well-vetted thing!!! I just put it together and used it a bit with half a dozen or so adults who *almost* tested well enough for our pre-Algebra so they had an extra credit hour help... they've made a version of the course with the hour tucked into it now, and we built a different course for people notmaking it into pre-Algebra.