Expanding Your Curriculum Knowledge Beyond High School

Secondary school teachers are often well versed in understanding the components of the grade 9-12 mathematics curriculum's and how to develop lessons that address each of the curriculum requirements. One component that is often overlooked by high school teachers, especially those teaching grade 9 mathematics classes, is delving into the elementary mathematics curriculum. This gives teachers an understanding of where our students are coming from and an idea of the knowledge that they have likely already obtained.

It is important for teachers to understand the knowledge basis from which our students are coming from. This allows us to develop effective lessons that will scaffold on the previous knowledge that the students have already obtained in elementary level mathematics.

During assessment it could also be noted that students may be struggling with a certain concept. This could be due to the lack of prerequisite knowledge in a certain topic from elementary which is hindering students progress in learning new material. Although not part of the high school curriculum it is your role as a teacher to ensure each student is achieving their individual successes, which may require you giving a brief lesson on elementary level topics to refresh student's minds on certain topics.

In our class this week we were given curriculum expectations for grades 7-9 and tried to develop continuum's that would link concept ideas across each grade. This proved to be a challenging task as not all of the topics made direct correlations, especially when going from grade 8 to 9. This showed how big the gap was between content in grade 9 and and elementary, which is why it is important that teachers teaching that grade should become familiar with the elementary level content.

Continnum chart linking curriculum expectations from grades 7-9.

There is also a variety of resources available on Edugains that link curriculum expectations across the grades.