With the longer periods I have to teach this year, I’ve been interested in using lessons and tasks from the Mathematics Assessment Resource Service (MARS). The Mathematics Assessment Project provides lessons, tasks, and tests for middle school and high school classes, which can be filtered through using the grade, Standards for Mathematical Practice, or Mathematics Common Core State Standards. The lesson plans provided are very detailed and provide materials for a warm up, activity, and formative assessment. Lesson plans also offer anticipated student misconceptions and questions or prompts to address them. I’ve only used a handful of the lessons so far but have found them to be effective in teaching certain concepts, getting students motivated and engaged in the lesson, and promoting student use of mathematical reasoning to justify or disprove a claim, which fosters more mathematical discourse in my classroom. Check out the MARS lessons for yourself!
So far in my 8th grade classes, I have used Interpreting Distance-Time Graphs, Solving Linear Equations in One Variable, and Representing and Combining Transformations and plan to use Classifying Solutions to Systems of Equations when I get to the unit on solving systems.