Math Design Collaborative

The Mathematics Design Collaborative (MDC) brings to mathematics teaching and learning high-quality instructional tools and professional support services that play a pivotal role in helping the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation realize its ambitious goal of having 80% of low-income and minority students ready for college by 2025.

Introduction: Professional Learning Modules for the MDC

This Introductory Guide is intended to communicate the particular interpretation of formative assessment that underpins the Shell Center’s lessons.

• MDC Introductory Guide to Formative Assessment Workshop

Course Outlines and Professional Learning Workshop Guides for a Selection of Classroom Challenges for Grades 6 Through Algebra 2

These course outlines are provided to help teachers place the Classroom Challenges in their math courses. The Course Outlines illustrate how the mathematics of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) flows from Grade 6 to Algebra 2 in rigorous, focused, and coherent units of study. Classroom Challenges are allocated to various units within a Course Outline. For more information on the Classroom Challenges, please see the Math Assessment Project’s website.

The workshop guides are developed as a resource for workshop facilitators preparing to rollout Professional Learning around the Classroom Challenges. Professional Learning workshop guides have been developed for a selection of the Classroom Challenges allocated to Grades 6 through Algebra 2. These guides link supplemental materials such as Student Work, Criteria for Feedback, Growth Analysis Spreadsheets, and videos (if videos are available).

Grade 6 Course Outline (PDF)

• Laws of Arithmetic
• Mean, Median, Mode, and Range
• Sharing Costs: Traveling to School

Grade 7 Course Outline (PDF)

• Developing a Sense of Scale
• Estimations and Approximations: The Money Munchers
• Evaluating Statements About Probability
• Increasing and Decreasing Quantities by a Percent
• Proportion and Non-Proportion Situations
• Steps to Solving Equations
• Using Positive and Negative Numbers in Context

Grade 8 Course Outline (PDF)

• Classifying Solutions to Systems of Equations
• Estimating Length Using Scientific Notation
• Interpreting Distance-Time Graphs
• Lines and Linear Equations
• Modeling: Making Matchsticks
• Repeating Decimals
• Solving Linear Equations in One Variable

Summary of Course Outlines for Middle School (PDF)

Algebra 1 Course Outline (PDF)

• Comparing Investments
• Defining Regions Using Inequalities
• Forming Quadratics
• Functions and Everyday Situations
• Interpreting Algebraic Expressions
• Modeling: Having Kittens
• Optimization Problems: Boomerangs
• Rational and Irrational Numbers 1
• Solving Linear Equations in Two Variables
• Sorting Equations and Identities

Geometry Course Outline (PDF)

• 2D Representations of 3D Objects
• Applying Angle Theorems
• Calculating Volumes of Compound Objects
• Equations of Circles 1
• Evaluating Statements About Enlargements (2D & 3D)
• Evaluating Statements About Length and Area
• Finding Equations of Parallel and Perpendicular Lines
• Proofs of Pythagorean Theorem
• Representing and Combining Transformations

Algebra 2 Course Outline (PDF)

• Ferris Wheel
• Modeling Conditional Probabilities 1: Lucky Dip
• Modeling Conditional Probabilities 2: A Fair Game
• Rational and Irrational Numbers 2
• Representing Polynomials

Summary of Course Outlines for High School (PDF)

Video Library

Classroom Challenges Video Library

A Teacher’s MDC Story

“Before I received training on formative assessment in mathematics, much of my teaching consisted of giving students step-by-step instructions and tricks for solving specific problems. I assumed that my role as a math teacher was to determine the most efficient way to solve a problem and then teach my students how to mimic my procedures. I thought I was teaching mathematics, and making the subject easier for my students, but in reality I wasn’t helping them at all. I was simply teaching them to follow a recipe without thinking about what they were doing.”