Homework - BC Curriculum and Math Pathways

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(1) Please write about two things that were new to you or surprised you from the curriculum orientation guide and/or glossary of new terms.

There wasn't much that was surprising or new to me in the guide or glossary, since I have been working at a BC high school for the past two years and so needed to become familiar with the curriculum during that time. One thing that did stand out to me though as I read through the glossary was that we are covering a lot of the foundational theory of the new curriculum in our education classes in this program, and for that I am grateful. For example, a lot of time has been spent in this program discussing theories like constructivism, inquiry-based education, and social and emotional learning (SEL). Also, one thing that was new to me in reading over the K-12 math curriculum summary was noticing the goal/expectation of financial literacy. Depending on one's interpretation of this learning goal, I feel like there may be quite a bit of improvement needed in our approach to teaching about finance in math courses. One might a basic consider understanding stock markets, investment funds, taxation, and other concepts essential in addition to the common approach of just teaching simple and compound interest, annuities, and mortgages. 

(2) Create your own schematic chart of possible pathways in the courses of the BC Math curriculum from Grade 8 - 12. 

To the best of my knowledge, the BC curriculum does not provide any information about pre-requisites for math courses, so I have no way of verifying whether my understanding of the possible pathways is correct. I think this is something that should be included in the curriculum documents, or at least made more accessible/obvious if it is included and I just missed it.

This is my best stab at it:



I know that all students must take Math 8, 9, 10, and then one senior math course. I also know that you can always move up a track in the chart above (eg. from Pre-calc 11 to FoM 12) but that is not true in reverse (eg. typically need to do Pre-calc 11 before going to Pre-calc 12 after only completing FoM 11). I'm not sure what the perquisites for Comp Sci 11, History of Math, Geometry 12, or Statistics 12 would be so I left them without a designated track. Also, I assumed Comp Sci 12 would require the completion of Comp Sci 11. I also know that in schools with non-semester systems, Calculus 12 can be taken concurrently with Pre-calc 12.

Comments

  1. Susan Gerofsky19 October 2020 at 09:57

    Thank you Adam! Your flow chart is accurate as far as I know, though of course there is an expectation of some Math 10 course to get into History of Math 11, and some Math 11 course to get into Geometry 12 or Stats 12.

    I agree with you about financial literacy! And perhaps math teachers aren't necessarily the experts on all these topics -- we know about simple and compound interest, but perhaps not about advice around credit cards, investments, tax options etc. Great that you have first-hand knowledge of the curriculum through your work at schools!

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