My New Favorite CCSS Resource

In the fall, I was fortunate to be able to participate in professional development for Common Core Geometry.  Over the summer we met with other Geometry teachers in our county and poured over the first two modules posted by EngageNY.  If you haven't seen them yet, take a look.  All five modules are now posted.  There's some great things there, but there are also several concerns.  The last thing I heard from our BOCES math specialist is that we are on our last revision that is included in the state's contract with the authors of the modules.  (Meanwhile, we are still finding typos and calculation errors.)  Another concern has been that the people writing these modules are not affiliated with the people writing our state test.  The teachers that used the modules for Algebra last year said that they didn't align to the test very well, so their students were unprepared for the common core exam.  The thing that scares me the most is that teachers from other states are using these modules too.

[Side Note - An example where we already know the modules won't align to the exam:  Rotations are taught by showing the image and preimage of a rotated figure, and students are to use constructions to find the center of rotation, and then measure the angle of rotation.  However, when students actually take the exam, they are not given access to a protractor.  This makes no sense to me what-so-ever.]

So, just in case you are using or planning to use the EngageNY modules in Geometry, I wanted to share what one teacher is doing.  She has taken the modules and broken them down into units.  On her website she posts how she adapted the modules into notes for her students.  These notes are much easier to follow as a teacher and as a student.  I have not used them with my classes because I'm taking a different route this year, but a friend of mine has been using them and she says that they've made a big difference compared to the beginning of the year when she was using the original modules.  See this teacher's lesson notes here.  I am also linking to this teacher's homepage.  On the left side, you can find videos for the lessons.