Math 141                        Assignment to Review Elementary or Middle School Textbooks

In order for you to see how what we are studying in chapters 1 - 9 is relevant to what you will be teaching in elementary or middle school, I want you to look at textbooks for two different grade levels (at least 2 grades apart). You may use the “Curriculum Materials Center”, in room 127 of the new building for the Watson School of Education, or any other source you might have for elementary or middle school texts. (The Curriculum Materials Center website http://library.uncw.edu/cmc gives additional information including the hours it is open.)

You should write a brief description of what concepts are included in each of the two textbooks that you reviewed. Your description of the concepts covered in the text can be written in paragraph or outline format. Please indicate the grade level and publisher of the texts. Include copies of at least 3 pages from each of the textbooks to illustrate concepts that are related to what we have studied this semester.

The pages you copy should not just be selected at random but should be chosen because they match with something in the same way that it was taught in math 141.

This assignment will count as a quiz.  See the syllabus for when it is due.

Please be considerate of others doing this assignment. You can plan to do the assignment while you are at the Curriculum Materials Center and not check the books out. Or if you need to check out a book don’t keep it for more than a day.

[Notice it says: "brief description of concepts included in the textbook".

Thus you could write: "the 3rd grade text begins with a review of adding and subtracting whole numbers, (including understanding place value and estimation) and then continues with an introduction to multiplication and division of whole numbers. There is also a chapter on fractions and decimals. Each topic also includes problem solving. The text includes geometry, measurement, time and money which are topics not covered in math 141."

OR

You could write: "the following concepts are covered in the 3rd grade text:

addition & subtraction of whole numbers

estimation

place value

multiplication & division of whole numbers

fractions & decimals

problem solving is included with each topic.

The text also covered geometry, measurement, time and money which are not covered in math 141." ]

This link will connect you to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction http://www.ncpublicschools.org/curriculum/mathematics/scos/2003/k-8/index where you can read about what should be taught at each grade level.  Read the introduction for the group of grades you are interested in and then click on the grade information for each grade.  Pay special attention to the strands of Number and Operations and Algebra, since these are the ones that MAT 141 focuses on.