Here are some good questions from parents.
1. What textbooks are used for this course?
We use CPM Course 3 and the Algebra textbook. Students will have online access to both courses.
2. How much MP (math practice) is assigned daily?
Students usually have time to start their assignment in class. At home, students may spend 15-30 minutes completing their assignment. My aim is to assign no more than 30 minutes at home (on average) but this is uninterrupted work time and not counting breaks for snacks, online chatting, and other multi-tasking that may lower productivity. I highly encourage students to work efficiently even for MP because that will help them to do the same in a testing situation where the time will be limited. They will benefit from having the regular practice of working efficiently and then they will do the same in a testing situation.
*The reply above applies to our regular school situation. For distance learning, the length of assignments will be adjusted to meet school and district guidelines.
3. There are concepts showing up on the MP that my child is confused about. S(he) says that it was not taught in class. I don't even see it in the lesson for that assignment. What is going on and how can I help?
CPM (our textbook publisher) has a very unique philosophy and style which makes the textbook possibly difficult to navigate if you are a parent trying to help your child.
One of the unique aspects of CPM is that their homework is titled "Review and Preview" which means some problems were covered in previous lessons (or even previous years) and some problems may be new and it's there to give students a taste or sampling of what's ahead. There are also problems that have been recently introduced and will be explored in further detail in upcoming lessons. Your child is not being held strictly accountable for “new” content showing up on the math practice, s(he) should give an effort then check for the correct answer the following day. However, concepts that have re-appeared on multiple assignments and/or reinforced in class should be familiar and your child should be getting these correct for the most part.
Generally CPM introduces topics a topic in a lesson or in the HW, follow-ups in future lessons, reinforces the concept in the spiral review, then is checking for mastery at the “Checkpoint”. The “checkpoint” is a final check but concepts can and will appear on tests before students see them in the “checkpoint.”
From a parent perspective it's hard to know which topics are the important ones and which ones are on the peripheral until they become the main topic. At this point we really want students to take responsibility for their own learning, in class I'm telling kids what unit we are doing and what the main topics are and for testing they haven't had so many exams yet to see my style but they will soon see enough samples and get used to it. The best "reference guide" for you to see what's been done in class is to look in your child’s math notebook- all the problems, notes, data we collect, HW, etc. are in there minus the occasional worksheet.
Is there any parent resource? I would still like to have something at home to help my child.
CPM offers a “Parent Guide” with traditional notes including examples and problems to practice.
The Parent Guide for Course 3 can be found at http://cpm.org/cc3-additional-resources#parentguide
The Parent Guide for Algebra can be found at https://cpm.org/cca-additional-resources#parentguide
Additional parent resources can be found at http://cpm.org/parent-support/
I’m confused about math contests.
Math contest information can be found at https://sites.google.com/cusdk8.org/miller-math-contests/