digits Texas Edition Grade 7

Evaluation for 2.1
Materials dedicate most attention to the development of the primary focal area for the grade-level.

The materials spend the majority of concept development on the primary focal areas, strategically and systematically develop students’ content knowledge, and provide practice opportunities for students to master the content. The material content primarily aligns to the seventh-grade level TEKS throughout, building on concepts from one unit to the next and using consistent strategies across all units to develop students’ content knowledge for grade-level TEKS. The program spirals primary focal areas throughout, and the material clearly showcases focal areas of grade-level TEKS throughout the material. Materials strategically and systematically develop students’ content knowledge by design to inform teaching and learning and include introduction and review of key concepts at all levels. The instructional material also provides opportunities for students to practice while building academic rigor in primary focal areas within and across units. Teacher guides give instructions for the implementation of the resources. The materials discuss the organizational reasoning for each topic, as well as information from previous grade levels and explanations of how this approach will be used in future lessons. The materials describe the philosophy behind the focus questions listed within the topic and the benefit to student content understanding. They provide multiple digital practice opportunities for the focal area skills, which can be completed in a variety of settings. The materials build in rigor on concepts throughout each lesson to achieve the intent of the primary focal areas. The materials provide supports and suggestions for implementing supports, including a variety of settings such as independent work, working in teams, and class discussions.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

Material content primarily aligns to the seventh-grade level TEKS throughout, building on concepts from one unit to the next. The materials devote a majority of lessons to the primary focal areas for grade 7, as outlined in the TEKS. For example, the primary focus of nine of the 15 topics cover ordering and using operations with rational numbers, solving and writing equations and inequalities, including writing problems situations, angle relationships, properties and calculations for measurements of a circle, calculations and real-world applications of surface area and volume of right solids, using and converting unit rates, and analyzing and applying proportional relationships—the key focal areas for the grade level. Key focal areas are elaborated on and spiraled throughout the material. For example, some topics and units aligned with seventh-grade primary focal areas in Topic 1 are rational numbers and operations; Topic 2 aligns with primary focal area expressions and equations; Topic 11 aligns with the primary focal area comparing data sets. According to the Standards alignment information, the program spirals the primary focal student expectations throughout the curriculum. For example, 7.3A states that students will add, subtract, multiply, and divide rational numbers fluently. This standard is spiraled in 33 lessons. Student expectation 7.11A, which states that students will model and solve one-variable, two-step equations, and inequalities, is spiraled into 21 lessons. The material clearly showcases focal areas of grade-level TEKS throughout the material. The “Program Overview Guide” shows the alignment of focal points to each topic. Each teacher guide showcases grade-level TEKS alignment for each part of the lesson. Lesson plans also include grade-level TEKS covered in the lesson.

The materials strategically and systematically develop students’ content knowledge by design. The materials provide a table of contents for all units with 15 topic descriptions, and within each topic, there are multiple lessons with a list of TEKS covered within those topics. For each unit, teacher preparation notes provide descriptions of each topic/lesson covered within the unit and the associated timing and TEKS, in addition to the primary focal areas covered within the unit. These primary focal areas line up with the TEKS. For example, the materials contain “Teacher Guide” planning documents that provide grade-level TEKS covered in the material, concepts covered in previous grade levels, and upcoming concepts to be covered in future grade levels. The material also provides a table with the lesson titles, which showcases where the primary focal areas are covered, along with suggested timing to spend on each topic. The Program Overview Guide outlines the program essentials consistently included in each topic, such as prerequisite lessons, launch activities to introduce key concepts, vocabulary and key concepts highlights, examples providing students opportunities to practice, topic review lessons to revisit and summarize learning, and enrichment projects as extension activities. For example, the Program Overview Guide focuses on Flexible Design, stating lesson design requires students to talk about mathematics and demonstrate their understanding, all while raising student interest and achievement. To validate the program overview, examples of Unit and Topic structures include Topic 2, which includes an enrichment project, a prerequisite lesson, seven grade-level lessons, a topic review, and a Topic 2 test; whereas, Topic 7 includes an enrichment project, a prerequisite lesson, six grade-level lessons, a topic review, and Topic a 7 test.

The design of the materials informs the teaching and learning of math concepts and notes a systematic philosophy around the introduction and review of key concepts and developing skills and concepts with a depth of understanding. Focus questions are content-specific questions posed at the start of the lesson and revisited at the end of the lesson. Essential questions are used throughout lessons to link smaller ideas to a coherent whole idea within and across grades and units. Teacher guides accompany each lesson, including the vocabulary and key concepts, while the interactive activities in each lesson provide students opportunities to practice. Materials also include 25 intervention lessons clustered around key concepts. For example, Cluster 15 supports the development of proportional relationships and includes three interactive activities. 

The materials use a systematic philosophy by breaking down the material and then building upon student understanding. For example, unit lessons begin with a prerequisite lesson or enrichment activity to review or remediate students’ prior knowledge of the content, which is then followed by the content lesson. Students are then taken through three practice activities that build on the content from each of the previous activities; the key concepts are revisited and reviewed; and finally, students can independently demonstrate mastery on the leveled homework assignments, as demonstrated in Lesson 2-4. The prerequisite lessons review solving simple equations and properties of operations. The “Launch” for this lesson compares equations and inequalities in a real-world long problem. In part 1, students write an inequality; part 2 has students solve an inequality and graph its solution; part 3 focuses on applying the multiplication property of inequalities. Finally, homework for both struggling and advanced learners allows students to demonstrate understanding.

The instructional material includes suggestions and materials to practice and reinforce primary focal area skills. Each lesson contains a detailed description of suggestions of the instructional process, including questions to address before, during, and after the lesson, some of which detail how to connect models and connect to prior lessons. For example, Lesson 2-1 suggests utilizing models and properties of operations. Questions and tasks within and across units build in academic rigor to meet the full intent of the primary focal areas. Each lesson follows the same format from beginning to end, starting with Launch, a student engagement piece with mathematical content at the start of class through “Problem-Based Interactive Learning.” After students complete the launch problem, the program asks the focus question, which they are to consider as they move through each “Example.” The materials typically include three examples per lesson, which provide direct, explicit instruction of the lesson’s concept. The examples build on one another to ensure understanding; ”Key Concepts” provide vocabulary development opportunities that are key to conceptual understanding of the lesson. Then “Close and Check” is designed to bring students back to the focus question. The “Student Companion” includes “Do you know how?” problems for additional practice and “Do you understand?” problems for higher-order thinking practice.

The design of the materials informs the teaching of math concepts through the use of teacher guides. For example, at the start of Topic 3, the “Teacher Preparation Notes” contain a section titled “Math Background,” which provides the teacher with information regarding concepts that students covered in earlier grades and the transition to current material. The material takes a systematic approach to the teaching of each topic once any necessary remediation is made. The lessons begin with a launch, including interactive student activities that begin each lesson. Launch activities are followed by examples and end with a Close and Check whereby students explain in various manners their level of understanding (such as how and why they chose an answer, error analysis, application to real-world situations, and verbal descriptions of the process used to find a solution.) For example, the “In Class Notes” for Lesson 14-1 provide before, during, and after prompts for the launch, problems/examples, and Close and Check for each TEKS covered. The material also embeds scaffolding, extensions, focus questions, and team collaboration/discussions in the document. This structure is consistent with the other lessons covering key concepts. Topics also include assessments.

Each lesson includes opportunities for students to practice in different settings. Lessons include student companions for guided practice, leveled homework assignments that contain a variety of exercises at different levels of rigor, and a mixed review. The homework activities are printable and editable PDF documents, while the mixed review activities are interactive. Questions and tasks within and across units build in academic rigor to meet the full intent of the primary focal areas. For example, the first part of Unit B Lesson 2-1 asks students to solve equations using models. Part 2 asks students to use inverse operations to solve simple equations. Unit D develops the concept of proportionality from ratios and rates (Topic 6), proportional relationships (Topic 7), representing linear relationships (Topic 8), and percents (Topic 9). In Topic 9, Part 1 begins the concept development by asking students to identify if the unknown is a part or a whole. Part 2 then instructs students to solve percent problems. 

The materials also offer multiple digital practice opportunities for the focal area skills for completion in whole group, small group, and individual settings. Students complete digital lessons with virtual manipulatives and have the option to work with a print student companion. The enrichment activities for each topic encourage students to engage with the focal areas in a real-world setting. For example, Topic 6 allows students to engage with the focal area ratios and proportional relationships to propose a floor plant for a concert venue. Students will also engage with the focal area of data representation by creating charts of their findings. For example, Lesson 7-5 provides a drag-and-drop activity for true/false statements relating to similar figures, which would be completed individually and then discussed as a class or with partners.

Evaluation for 2.2
Materials strategically develop students’ conceptual understanding by following a progression of learning from concrete to representational to abstract (CRA) as is appropriate for the grade-level and content.

While the materials provide many manipulatives throughout the lessons, as well as the on-demand “Math Tools,” they provide little support. The lesson videos and lower levels of practice use the manipulatives, but the “Teacher Guide” gives no information on using manipulatives. There are many online manipulatives provided, along with some suggestions for hands-on, tangible activities to assist with concept acquisition; however, these are not present for all lessons. Additionally, there are not always suggestions or guidance for an alternative manipulative in low-tech classrooms. The materials mention utilizing tools with lesson topics and make suggestions to help students progress along the CRA continuum in some places. For the most part, the material does not support teachers in understanding how students progress along the CRA continuum. Though there are opportunities for instruction to incorporate concrete, representational, and abstract thinking skills, these skills are not always introduced and taught along the continuum. Additionally, there is no clear evidence of the importance of the sequence for developing student understanding and learning. 

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials contain pictorial and abstract representations throughout but minimal concrete or digitally interactive manipulatives. While some lesson interactives contain virtual manipulatives, the program does not have varied manipulatives, nor does the program introduce various types of representations to increase rigor. Examples of illustrations or pictorial representations include the following. Student journals are included but appear to be mainly abstract. Lesson 2-3 Part 1 has a virtual model (similar to algebra tiles) that students manipulate to solve the problem. Homework Helper 9-5 G provides students with a virtual manipulative illustrating percent proportion through the “Tools” guide.

The program does include a link in “Student Companion” to myMath Universe, an extension to the program that includes videos, games, and simulations. This ancillary resource is not aligned specifically with individual topics and units. The “Glossary” provides additional support for vocabulary words. The program also provides external links to interactive tools such as a number line, place value blocks, algebra tiles, and a coordinate graphing program. Also, a “Math Tools” option is available, which houses number lines, place-value blocks, area models, fraction and percents, integer chips, algebra tiles, pan balance, coordinate grapher, 2-D shapes, 3-D figures, graph generators, probability, and a calculator. Some of these items are appropriate for the grade level and content, while others are not necessary or aligned with the grade-level standards. The online materials provide an array of manipulatives, pictorial representations, and abstract representations to introduce and practice mathematical concepts for many of the lessons. It should be noted that they are not explicitly used or suggested for use in all possible lessons. The materials increase in rigor, beginning with a “Launch” to introduce the topic, followed by three lesson parts that increase in rigor, and ending with the “Close and Check” activity that typically entails higher-order thinking. Lessons also use manipulatives to give visual representations to abstract concepts. For example, in Lesson 2-1, students use a pan balance to represent solving an equation while keeping the properties of equality. The Math Tools have a pan balance but do not provide instruction to students on how to use it (however, a previous sixth-grade lesson does provide information) or when they should use it. The “Teacher Guide” does not instruct the teacher to implement the pan balance. Lesson 4-3 does begin with the appropriate manipulative, pan balance, and leads into a pictorial representation for the concept, and uses abstract representations throughout the topic/lesson. The material also uses real-life scenarios to show the use of equations and equation models to organize steps for solving the equation. 

No evidence is found to verify that the material guides the teachers in identifying where students’ understanding is on the CRA continuum. Topic planning guides do include a “Math Background” section that provides teachers with a generalization of tools typically used to build concepts. Lesson guides provide similar information, even giving suggestions on difficulties students might have; however, the suggestions do not provide specific instructional strategies to help students progress through the CRA continuum. For example, the Lesson 9-5 Teacher’s Guide states that students might misunderstand that the greater amount of change results in a greater percent change and suggests that teachers emphasize that the percent change is dependent upon the ratio of the amount of change to the original quantity. 

The materials assist teachers in recognizing student progression along the CRA continuum by describing the build-up from part-to-part in each lesson’s Teacher Guide. For example, Topic 5 systematically teaches students the why, how, and application of surface area. The materials begin with a hands-on exploration of cardboard nets where students match up 3D figures to the nets and then guide students into using the formulas and applying surface area to real-world problems. The teacher guide provides ample guidance in steering discussion, making suggestions, and identifying possible correct answers or solutions from students. In each discussion question, the material provides sample answers and common misconceptions in addition to how to address those misconceptions. The materials provide instructional suggestions for teachers to help students progress through the CRA continuum. Using the example above, the “Solution Notes” section of the teacher guide provides guidance for student mistakes in the activities.

Even within the scope of the lessons, the continuum might not always begin with the concrete representations. Some lessons start with representations that are familiar and related to concrete objects with which they likely have previous experience. For example, Lesson 2-1 begins with solving one-step equations and modeling using a pan balance. This experience is continued in Lesson 2-3. However, Lesson 2-2 begins with abstract thinking of a new concept, two-step equations, and incorporates a high level of Bloom’s Taxonomy, generating equations, before backing to an introduction of two-step equations in the following unit. Although the materials provide a variety of representations of the CRA continuum in lessons, there is no evidence that the materials support the teachers’ understanding of the importance of the progression along the CRA sequence. 

Evaluation for 2.3
Materials support coherence and connections between and within content at the grade-level and across grade levels.

The materials provide some coherence and connections between and within content at the grade-level and across grade levels. While the materials do provide prior knowledge and skills information to the teacher for reference, they provide little opportunity or information to the teacher or students regarding how these skills are connected. There is no support given for discussions to engage students in recalling prior knowledge. Additionally, aside from listing future standards for subsequent years, there is little support regarding the depth and breadth of content.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The seventh-grade instructional materials contain seven “Units of Study,” and each unit contains between one and four instructional topics. Each unit starts with a “Prerequisite Assessment” consisting of 30 questions from prior grade levels and skills identified as skills necessary for content mastery in the current unit content. The “Teacher Guide” for each topic contains a section noting required prior student expectations and the future student expectations that students are working toward. For example, Topic 1 notes the following: the seventh-grade instructional materials have 15 topics covering the seventh-grade math content. Each topic includes a Topic “Enrichment Project” and a “Prerequisites Lesson.” Teachers assign the enrichment project to students who have shown mastery of the prerequisite skills using the Prerequisite Assessment. The project connects previously learned skills to higher-order thinking skills, communication skills, and technology skills. It also introduces concepts for the current topic. For example, Topic 1 includes the student expectations 7.2A, 7.3A, and 7.3B. The project addresses the student expectations 7.3A and 7.3B. Teachers assign the Prerequisite Lesson to students who have not mastered the prerequisite skills in the Prerequisite Assessment. Students work with the teacher to develop an understanding of prior skills. The materials connect current grade-level topics to skills learned in prior grades, in addition to practicing those skills. For each topic, “Preparation Notes” explicitly describe material from previous grades and what will be covered in eighth grade and sometimes beyond. For example, on top of remediations made after the Prerequisite Assessments, if needed, the topics begin with a “Prerequisite Activity” for all students with differentiated instructions that incorporates a review of concepts needed to move forward on grade-level work. The Prerequisite Activity for Topic 5 prepares students to calculate the surface area and volume of solid figures by finding areas of two-dimensional figures such as rectangles, triangles, and hexagons. The activity also practices using formulas in addition to reviewing basic concepts of volume. The materials provide familiar models from previous grades to build on students' vertical content knowledge and connect with topics covered in future grades. For example, the Lesson 2-1 Teacher Guide describes a concept covered in previous grades and explains that the students may need a refresher in using the pan balance tools. The guide also suggests that students who are ready use algebra tiles, which is a grade 8 model. Lesson 5 has an additional example of support, where students must use the knowledge gained in Lesson 4-5 to find the area of the base shape of the prism to calculate the volume. For example, the Teacher Guide for Topic 5 lists the seventh-grade TEKS covered in the Lessons, which align with the TEA vertical alignments as seen below: seventh grade = 8A, 8B, 9A, 9C, 9D; sixth grade = 8B, 8D; eighth grade: 6A, 6B, 7B. The materials work with familiar models and strategies from previous grade levels to build on knowledge to prepare students for future grades. The materials include tasks that assist students in making connections from previously learned topics to current topics. For example, the topic opener for Topic 6 reminds students that they previously studied rates and proportional relationships. The Teacher Guide states that the lesson reviews part-to-part ratios and how to find equivalent ratios. The guide also describes what the student learns in the current topic and how they will use it in future topics, such as writing “unit rates with whole numbers and fractions to solve real-world problems.” The materials frequently include problems/tasks that require students to analyze how they can apply the mathematics they are learning to real-world scenarios. For example, Lesson 4-4 includes real-world applications, such as calculating the area coverage of a windshield wiper blade, calculating the area of a garden space, as well as using the area to shade a clock for visualization of a quarter-circle. It should be noted that each topic has an “Additional Problem Solving” lesson at the end that often encompasses various concepts from the topic and contextualizes the topics into real-world applications. The “Launch” section of each lesson presents students with a task to solve. After guided questioning by the teacher before, during, and after solving the task, the lesson presents students with a “Connect Your Learning” page that relates the previous task to a mathematical concept highlighted in the following lesson. For example, Lesson 4-1 gives students a prompt to draw a garden, with a fountain in the center that is the same distance from anywhere on the path surrounding the garden. This lesson requires students to draw a circular path around the garden. The page following the task points out that this is the definition of a circle. The lesson parts develop content by introducing the mathematical concepts, as well as relating them to real-world problem solving. For example, Lesson 4-1, Part 1, introduces students to the naming structure of line segments, Part 2 builds on the understanding of radius and diameter using naming structures of the segments, and finally, Part 3 uses the previous lessons on an orange slice (cut in a circle). The “Student Companion” allows students to explain a real-world solution regarding building a shed for a circular dog park.

Although some of the material includes tasks that require students to use skills that build on one another, the material neglects to support students’ understanding of how the concepts build. For example, Topic 2 includes a prerequisite activity that requires students to reflect on the skills used. The “Topic Opener” is a video that presents information on how the current topic builds on the last; however, this video does not require students to complete a task. Launch activities include Connect Your Learning segments that also provide information on the progression of skills but do not provide students the opportunity to examine the relationships or patterns for themselves. The materials do, however, provide some background information for teachers to understand what a student may have learned in prior grades. For example, the teacher guides throughout the instructional materials provide math background information that directly aligns prior content with the current content. Lesson 6-1 notes “Students previously used ratios in grade 6 to make comparisons between two quantities. They learned how to make part-to-part, part-to-whole, and whole-to-part comparisons and express them as ratios in several different forms. They also learned to compare ratios to one another to identify and use equivalent ratios.” It notes that students will review part-to-part ratios. There is no connection to other concepts for students to see the mathematical interconnectivity. 

The materials contain “Math Background” sections within the Teacher Guides for each of the 15 topics of the instructional resource. This section lists what learning took place in prior grade levels or within the current grade level and how it supports current topic material. For example, in Topic 6, “The topic Ratios and Rates reviews equivalent ratios and unit rates, which were introduced in grade 6, and adds to their complexity by including fractional numerators and denominators. Thus, students gain further exposure to complex fractions after being formally introduced in the first topic. As in grade 6, students use their knowledge of unit rates to solve real-world problems about recipes and running/walking rates.” The Math Background continues, noting the topic gives students the foundation they need to recognize proportional relationships, the focus of future topics. Along with the Math Background, the materials consistently provide guiding documents for teachers in each unit, topic, and lesson that help teachers understand how topics build both within the unit or grade-level horizontally and vertically below and above grade-level. 

Evaluation for 2.4
Materials are built around quality tasks that address content at the appropriate level of rigor and complexity.

Although the materials are built around quality tasks and appropriate context, there is little guidance on modifying materials if necessary. There is evidence that topics within and across units increase in depth and complexity as the lessons progress and that the materials provide tasks that increase in the appropriate grade-level rigor. Explanation of math concepts and tasks can be found in the teacher guides for each topic and lesson, and teacher guides for specific lessons include guidance for teachers explaining how tasks build student efficacy by providing sample student responses and guidance questions for tasks at the beginning of, during, and upon completing tasks. The material is rich with meaningful tasks providing opportunities for students to apply mathematics in real-world contexts but does not guide teachers on revising lessons for student interests. No evidence was found on rubrics or keys to evaluate student discourse, nor was evidence found to support the teacher with setting up and reinforcing strong practices for student discourse. The materials provide topics and tasks that incorporate topical information that is of interest to students of their age and uses various tactics to make material relevant. The materials provide multiple supports for teachers to assist students in developing strong content knowledge but do not give guidance to teachers on personalizing the content for their students’ interests. While the materials provide many probing questions for students to discuss and internalize the content, they do not provide structured support for evaluating those discussions. 

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

As a solely digital resource, the material sometimes guides students through the interactive use of simulations of concrete material, such as the use of 3D Geometry tools in Lesson 4-2 for building and measuring circles. The material includes representation models throughout the lessons, such as protractors to illustrate measuring angles in Lesson 3-1, two-dimensional shapes to arrange to form prisms in Lesson 5-2, and the use of a spinner to demonstrate probability concepts in Lesson 12-1. Topics within and across units increase in depth and complexity as the lessons progress. The material guides students through the models and understanding with increasing complexity and rigor throughout each lesson. For example, Topic 7-1 begins with a lesson on measuring angles where students use an online protractor to find angle measures, builds by finding the value of a variable in an expression representing an angle measure, and ends with the student completing error analysis on a diagram of a protractor angle measurement, as well as high-level reasoning requiring a verbal response on what angle measure are possible. For example, the material provides tasks that increase in the appropriate grade level rigor, such as in Unit D going from Ratios and Rates and Proportional Relationships to Representing Linear Relationships. Within the topics, the lessons are at the appropriate level of rigor. For example, Topic 9 provides an opportunity for students to conceptually understand the percent equation, develop fluency in using the percent equation, and apply percentages to real-world contexts such as the simple interest formula in finance. 

The teacher guides for each topic and lesson contain explanations of math concepts and tasks. For example, in Topic 7, the “Teacher Guide” explains how students review writing proportions and using inverse operations to solve proportions and use that knowledge to connect to multiple representations of proportional relationships. Teacher Guides for specific lessons include guidance for teachers explaining how tasks build student efficacy by providing sample student responses and guidance questions for tasks at the beginning of, during, and upon completing tasks. Teacher lesson guides also include lesson objectives that clearly outline what goals the tasks lead students to master. For example, Lesson 7-1 covers standard TEKS 7.4B: calculate unit rates in mathematical and real-world problems. The lesson objective states that students will solve unit rate problems involving constant speed. The “Lesson Guides” also reference mathematical process standards that build student efficacy toward attaining and demonstrating mastery. The materials include “Essential Questions” and “Math Background” in the Teacher Guide for each unit, topic, and lesson. Additionally, the materials explain how each task builds student efficacy toward the goal of demonstrating mastery. Unit Teacher Guides contain an explanation of the unit questions utilized in the topics and lessons, and what the students should understand by the end of the unit. For example, Unit D states the Essential Questions of this unit focus on using proportional and linear relationships to make comparisons and decisions. Math Background details that this unit addresses proportionality and is building on the foundation started in grade 6. Topic Teacher Guides contain the Essential Questions, Math Background, and a breakdown of standards included in the topic; prior taught standards; and standards students will see in the future. For example, Topic 6 includes Essential Questions focusing on distinguishing the different kinds of rates and identifying rates in the real world. Math Background states this topic reviews sixth-grade ratios and rates and gives students the foundation they need to recognize proportional relationships using various representations. Lesson Teacher Guides use Lesson Focus Questions to build toward the overall Topic Essential Question and the overarching understanding. Math Background typically states previously learned topics. Additionally, lessons contain “Lesson Objectives.” For example, Lesson 6-1 poses the focus question, “What does it mean if two different ratios describe the same situation?” However, there is no statement or guidance on how the response to this question can help guide students to understand the Essential Question for the topic. The Math Background notes how students previously learned about making comparisons between two quantities in sixth grade, what they learn throughout this lesson, and what they will learn in the future. The lesson objective is to apply and extend previous understandings of equivalent ratios. The material contains editable lesson plans but does not guide teachers in revising content for students’ backgrounds or interests.

The materials provide students the opportunity to apply math to different situations and real-world contexts. For example, the “Student Companion” sheet accompanying Lesson 1-3 starts with basic mathematical situations for students using a number line to work through. As the lesson progresses, the content becomes more detailed, with opportunities to justify thinking. By the end of the lesson, students use the newly learned concept and apply it to a real-world situation. There is also an opportunity to analyze errors. For example, in the Error Analysis section, “The record high temperature in the United States is 134℉, and the record low temperature is 80 below 0 ℉. A classmate writes an equation to find the difference between the two temperatures. Explain her error and give the correct answer.” There is no evidence regarding how to modify tasks, though the provided lesson plans are editable. 

The material provides tasks set in real-world contexts and uses different approaches throughout the lessons. The material also emphasizes real-world applications at the end of the topic through the use of problem solving in a context that is grade-level appropriate for the students. For example, in Lesson 7-6, students use the information acquired in Topic 7 lessons about proportionality and similarity to apply in real-world scenarios. The real-world scenarios consist of drawing a net for an addition to a room for a scale model, calculating the amount of paint needed to paint an apartment, and recognizing proportional relationships in a real-world context. However, no evidence on how the materials guide teachers to modify content to be relevant to their specific students, backgrounds, or interests was found. 

While the material provides information on sample student responses, it neglects to provide guidance on anticipated student responses and how to modify instruction based on those responses. The materials provide teacher guidance on anticipating student responses and strategies but do not list follow-up questions and possible incorrect responses. The materials provide guidance on the appropriate grade-level strategies to use on tasks, although the anticipated strategies do not increase in sophistication, and only one strategy is offered. 

The material is rich with questions that support student discourse. The Teacher Guide for the topic poses an essential question that is open-ended and prompts deep discussion. For example, Topic 8 asks, “What role does the rate of change play?” The Teacher Guides for specific lessons include additional questions narrowing the focus; for example, Lesson 8-2 asks, “ What role does the initial value play?” The material contains sample student responses to guiding questions before, during, and after lessons on the Teacher Guides and evidence of sequencing of the discussion. The material addresses students’ possible misconceptions in the “Solution Notes and Error Prevention” sections of the Teacher Guides. However, no evidence was found on rubrics or keys to evaluate student discourse, nor was evidence found to support the teacher with setting up and reinforcing strong practices for student discourse. There was no evidence of rubrics or guidance for providing feedback during student discourse. When referencing the “Program Overview” guide for teachers, it states “During instruction, share and discuss solutions provided with each digital Example and Got It? problem. These solutions foster communication during all parts of each lesson…” and that the “Do you know HOW,” “Do you UNDERSTAND,” and homework sections all “foster communication in ways consistent with the math process standards.” 

Evaluation for 2.5
Materials include cohesive, year-long plan for students to develop fluency in an integrated way.

While the material provides opportunities for developing procedural fluency in every lesson through its “Launch” and “Student Companion” activities, the opportunity to continue an ongoing, year-long plan is not evident or in place. A scaffold or extended fluency plan is also not evident. The materials provide discourse opportunities around conceptual understanding behind the fluency practice with the additional questions in the Student Companion pages and with the Topic Opener and Topic Close “Essential Questions.” The materials also provide opportunities for this development through emphasis on algorithms and building of number sense. The program overview provides guidance on finding fluency practice for each lesson, followed by conceptual exercises that tie both skills together. The material meets the majority of the guidance for each indicator, such as providing opportunities for students to choose an efficient and accurate strategy to problem solve and remediation lessons focused on fluency for students who show a need based on the prerequisite assessments at the beginning of each unit. However, while the material includes scaffolded homework, it has no extension activities specifically related to fluency for students who have shown mastery. Advanced students can find enrichment activities, yet many of those do not relate to number fluency and tend to focus on concept exploration. Also, while procedural fluency is required to show conceptual understanding in several tasks throughout the material, there is no year-long strategic plan given to teachers to build (or extend) fluency connected to concept development. 

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials contain a “Teacher’s Guide” or lesson notes that describe the design and purpose of fluency practice within the program and make connections to the development of conceptual understanding. For example, the materials explain the connection between the fluency within the lesson and the focus of the lesson in a lesson note to teachers, noting that the fluency practice supports students’ access to the concept of the day by supporting the quick recall of facts used throughout the lesson. There is no evidence that the materials provide support for conducting fluency practice with students or provide strategic discourse opportunities. Each launch presents an open-ended scenario for students to develop and demonstrate conceptual understanding utilizing a strategy of their choice. For example, Lesson 2-3 presents the following problem “The shaky bagel baker decides to just divide by 13 to decide how much to charge for each bagel. Does his method represent the per-bagel price his cross-town rival charges for bagels one to thirteen? Explain your reasoning.” The material provides strategic discourse opportunities around conceptual understanding behind fluency practice through Topic Openers and Topic Close Essential Questions. For example, the “Connect Your Learning” and “Close and Check” Focus Question for Lesson 5-5 asks, “How can you apply what you know about finding the volume of one right square pyramid to finding the volume of any right pyramid?” While the material provides these opportunities, it has no outlined plan that supports determining how and when to conduct fluency practice.

The program overview guide states that algorithms are practiced for fluency in the “Do You Know HOW?” exercises provided in the Student Companion, with additional fluency practice provided in leveled homework. Following the fluency practice, the “Do You Understand?” exercises address the conceptual understanding of the lesson/topic. For example, in Lesson 9-3, the teacher guide states Exercises 1, 2, and 3 of the Student Companion focus on the Do You Know How? by having students find the product of mathematical and real-world decimal problems. The guide also states the next two exercises focusing on Do You Understand? are more application-based, one of them requiring a written response analyzing the implications of rounded products and the other necessitating error analysis. 

The materials provide an opportunity for fluency practice connecting to concept development and expectations of the grade level; however, there is no evidence supporting a year-long plan to build fluency. The program partially uses rigor synonymously with fluency, stating that rigor means using algorithms flexibly, accurately, and efficiently. The materials provide opportunities throughout the year for this development by emphasizing algorithms, which are practiced in the Do You Know How? exercises in the Student Companion, as well as the leveled homework exercises and mixed review homework exercises. For example, Lesson 8-1 prompts students “Do you know how to find the rate of change of a linear relationship that models the height of a ramp?” Additionally, the material provides opportunities throughout the year for building fluency through building number sense with the “Prerequisite Lessons” and “Mixed Review Homework” exercises. For example, the Mixed Review exercise #3 in Lesson 9-1 asks students to find the unit rate by dividing fractions. Again, while the “Program Overview Guide” briefly discusses these opportunities, the program does not present a strategic outline plan supporting monitoring students’ progress in building fluency. In Topic 1, the material focuses on operations with all rational numbers. Each lesson within the topic has procedural and fluency practice within the Student Companion guide. The last lesson of the topic is a mixed review of all concepts. This concept is the only topic covered in the unit, and the “Unit Assessment” includes items from the content as well. None of the following units, topics, or lessons practice the content of Topic 1. The materials do not provide a year-long plan for building fluency that specifically describes fluency routines. However, the “Prerequisite Assessments” consistently act as a precursor to a lesson’s increasing complexity in fluency to reach grade-level expectations. Additionally, the “Math Background” section includes procedural fluency suggestions for students. For example, the Math Background for Lesson 1-2 states that students previously learned how to use number lines and integer chips to add integers. The guide further states that the current lesson will “formalize” rules for adding rational numbers and integers and apply these rules to a real-world context. The Math Background also explains that two algorithms will be addressed for adding rational numbers and that students will use number sense to identify the sign of the sum (a tactic that promotes efficiency and accuracy when solving).

The material integrates fluency activities with the development of conceptual understanding through its Launch activities, Do You Know How? activities in the Student Companion guides, and Mixed Review Homework exercises. For example, the Launch activity for Lesson 9-5 asks students to write an argument about the growth of town populations analyzing two separate viewpoints. The Do You Know How? question of the same lesson asks whether students know how to find the percent increase between the contracted and expanded length of a banded ribbon worm. On the Mixed Review Homework assignment, number 3 requires students to apply the concept of linear pairs to solve simple equations using angle measures. The Launch activities also provide opportunities for students to strategically and flexibly choose the appropriate strategies for grade-level tasks and efficiently and accurately solve these tasks by applying their conceptual understanding of number relationships and strategies. The Launch activity 9-5 exemplifies such an open-ended multi-directional task. Additionally, Lesson 13-2 Launch directs students to show all the different ways they can design a car with specific parameters. The materials provide fluency activities that build foundational skills to support students’ conceptual understanding. Students practice algorithms for fluency with the Do You Know HOW? exercises in the Student Companion, as well as the leveled homework exercises and mixed review homework exercises. The materials also provide opportunities for students to develop efficient and accurate strategies for number facts and develop an understanding of algorithms to efficiently and accurately solve grade-level tasks. For example, Lesson 1-6 connects the concepts learned throughout the lesson for exercise and practice. The materials support procedural fluency of operations with fractions with properties of operations and equivalent expressions to the algorithms. The materials provide fluency activities integrated with the conceptual understanding of activities/discourse. For example, Lesson 14-6 purposefully integrates calculating percentages in a budgeting task where the school lunch cost has increased by 10%. Before this problem, the materials provide students with a “Need-Know-Plan” graphic organizer to assist in organizing a similar problem. The materials provide strategies for students to efficiently and accurately solve algorithms for grade-level tasks, in addition to opportunities to choose appropriate strategies and apply to grade-level tasks. For example, Lesson 2-3 guides students through using algebra tiles, in addition to providing suggestions for error avoidance. One suggestion mentions restating an expression that requires dividing by two to the multiplication of ½, thereby helping the student determine that the next step in solving the equation is multiplying by 2. Alternatively, students may choose the route of leaving the equation/expression unchanged and solve using inverse operations. For example, Lesson 9-1 exposes students to various percent-related problems. The lesson begins with a percent model used as a visual aid for concept development. After teaching the equation, students must choose the appropriate strategy for either finding a part of a number, finding what percent one number is of another, or finding a whole given the part and percent. 

Following each lesson, the materials provide homework for students to practice their fluency in their conceptual understandings. Each homework section gives students 4–6 numerical practice activities, as well as 9–11 problem-based tasks related to the conceptual understandings of the corresponding lesson. The homework practice for students allows them to apply appropriate strategies for solving tasks per the corresponding lesson. For example, Launch Lesson 1-3 encourages students to use the Identity Property of Addition. Part 1 asks students to use the Associative Property of Addition. The following practice asks students to choose the most efficient method for solving the problem strategically. The materials provide students with opportunities for applying conceptual understandings of number relationships within the lesson content. For example, lessons in Topic 1 give students opportunities to visualize the addition and subtraction of rational numbers on a number line and practice tasks associated with adding and subtracting rational numbers.

The material provides guidance for determining if students need differentiated support through “Prerequisite Exercises” and teachers’ “Lesson Guides.” Homework is auto-differentiated with built-in tutor support and auto-grading and remediation. The program uses the Prerequisites Assessment results to assign students into leveled learning groups. This differentiation includes leveled homework and mixed practice that can be assigned to each student. The material supports teachers in scaffolding fluency activities by activating prior knowledge and building background knowledge. The program does not support teachers in extending fluency activities for meeting fluency expectations of the grade. Also, the content of the assessments is heavily weighted on application rather than computational fluency. For example, the Prerequisite Assessment for Unit A includes arithmetic questions, such as adding and subtracting integers, in addition to multiplying positive and negative rational numbers. Remediation lessons are then assigned, if needed, based on the prerequisite results. The materials provide intervention lessons and practice activities for students who are not on target with the prerequisite and content lessons. According to the Overview Guide, the intervention lessons are combined into 18 different clusters that focus on number sense. They are designed to help students meet grade-level fluency expectations when working with whole numbers, decimals, and fractions. No evidence was found for extending grade-level fluency. The targeted intervention lessons provide scaffolding opportunities. For example, in the intervention lesson Adding Decimals, the lesson video relates adding decimals to adding whole numbers using visual cues.

Evaluation for 2.6
Materials support students in the development and use of mathematical language.

The materials support student development of mathematical language by highlighting targeted new and review vocabulary in each lesson, providing discussion opportunities for vocabulary understanding, and incorporating vocabulary routines within the review sections of each topic. However, daily lessons do not incorporate vocabulary routines and the learning goals of the individual lessons do not list vocabulary acquisition. The material provides a strategic approach to develop mathematical vocabulary specifically for English Learners (ELs) through the use of visual and contextual support but does not provide such an approach for general education students. The learning goals for the lesson include the academic mathematical language of the lesson and sometimes address the development of these terms. Most times, however, learning goals or lesson objectives simply utilize the academic mathematical vocabulary while stating the intended outcome of the lesson. The materials provide scaffolding suggestions for ELs, but not for general education students to support the development and use of academic vocabulary in context. The “Program Overview Guide” includes other guidance and scaffolding suggestions for ELs. Each lesson introduces new and review academic vocabulary in the teacher guides. The material provides ample opportunity for students to listen and read academic mathematical vocabulary within and across lessons; however, it has limited opportunity for students to write with an emphasis on the use of academic mathematical vocabulary. The material sometimes offers teachers suggestions to support the use of academic vocabulary in context in the “Teaching Tips” section of “Lesson Guides.” Each topic includes an interactive vocabulary review matching game. The “Student Companions” for topic reviews also include vocabulary review concept mappings. The material does not, however, include tasks that build from students’ informal language to the formal language of mathematics by making explicit connections. While there are suggestions throughout lesson guides that support student discourse, there are no routines or any pattern of language acquisition. The material lacks scaffolding techniques for all populations outside of EL students. 

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The material provides a strategic approach to develop mathematical vocabulary specifically for ELs through the use of visual and contextual support. Teacher Lesson Guides provide teachers with the mathematical vocabulary terms for the lessons, along with mathematical words previously learned for review. However, they provide no guidance for the teacher on how to strategically incorporate the mathematical vocabulary into the lesson for general education students. The learning goals for the lesson include the academic mathematical language of the lesson and sometimes address the development of these terms. For example, one of the learning objectives for Lesson 2-3 states “Solve multi-step real-life and mathematical problems posed with positive and negative rational numbers in any form, whole numbers, fractions, and decimals, using tools strategically.” Most times, however, learning goals or lesson objectives simply utilize the academic mathematical vocabulary while stating the intended outcome of the lesson. For example, Lesson 6-2 has three lesson objectives that do not address the development of the mathematical vocabulary: “1. Associate a unit rate with a ratio; 2. Solve unit rate problems involving unit pricing; and 3. Apply and extend previous understandings of equivalent ratios.” The new academic vocabulary words in the lesson are rate, unit price, unit rate, and ratio. Following the “Lesson Objectives,” the teacher guides introduce new and review vocabulary. Lesson “Key Concept” interactive resources introduce the vocabulary to the students. The material provides ample opportunity for students to listen and read academic mathematical vocabulary within and across lessons; however, it provides limited opportunity for students to write with an emphasis on the use of academic mathematical vocabulary. The digital resources include videos that sometimes clarify academic vocabulary, speak during vocabulary illustration, or read tasks to students using academic vocabulary. The Key Concept video of Lesson 8-1 speaks, illustrates, and writes the meaning of the rate of change. Some questions on Student Companion guides require students to write in the “Launch Reflection” and in the “Do You Understand?” sections. The same lesson asks students to write “What does the rate of change mean in Exercise 3?” The learning goals do not list vocabulary acquisition, except those found within the ELPS details.

Again, the materials provide scaffolding suggestions for ELs, but not for general education students to support the development and use of academic vocabulary in context. These suggestions are implicit in the ELPS that are included in each lesson. For example, Lesson 3-1 focuses on academic vocabulary: angle, vertex of an angle, straight angle, acute angle, obtuse angle, and right angle. The English Language Proficiency standard 3F guides teachers by suggesting they “ask and give information ranging from using a very limited bank of high frequency, high-need, concrete vocabulary, including keywords and expressions needed for basic communication in academic and social contexts, to using abstract and content-based vocabulary during extended speaking assignments.” The “Program Overview Guide” includes other guidance and scaffolding suggestions for ELs. The material sometimes offers teachers suggestions to support the use of academic vocabulary in context in the “Teaching Tips” section of Lesson Guides. For example, Lesson 3-1 does not include teaching tips. However, Lesson 3-4, which focuses on academic vocabulary supplementary angles, complementary angles, and adjacent angles, includes a teaching tip which guides teachers to “stress that angles may be supplementary even if they are not adjacent” and to check by adding the measures and determine if they equal 180 degrees. Each topic includes an interactive vocabulary review matching game. The Student Companions for topic reviews also include “Vocabulary Review Concept Mappings,” such as the Frayer Model. For example, Topic 2 prompts students to “Identify two challenging vocabulary terms from this topic. Write one vocabulary term in the center oval, and fill in the surrounding boxes with details that will help you better understand them.” The workspace includes two Frayer Models for the students to use to complete this task. Though these tasks exist, there is no explicit instruction or guidance for the teacher to set these as classroom routines. The material does not include tasks that build from students’ informal language to the formal language of mathematics by making explicit connections. For example, Lesson 9-6 gives extensive guidance for building an understanding of the new vocabulary introduced in the key concepts section. The material scaffolds ELPS guidance between beginning, intermediate, advanced, and advanced high levels. The strategies range from asking students to recall information presented in the key concepts section, providing sentence frames, having students ask questions to each other regarding markup and markdowns, and having students explain the concepts and provide their own examples. The materials consistently provide vocabulary reviews for every topic and provide topic-related vocabulary with visual representations accessible in the toolbar during lessons; however, there are no formal routines to support language development. The materials build to formal language by introducing topics with informal language at the beginning of concept acquisition. Once ready, the teacher guide introduces formal vocabulary and provides teaching suggestions. For example, in Lesson 14-4, before introducing the concept of net worth, the lesson asks students to consider the value of their bicycle, emphasizing how much the student paid for it and how much it would cost to replace it. Following the discussion is an introduction to mathematical vocabulary in the key concepts section, consisting of net worth, assets, and liabilities. Throughout the lesson, these three terms become the main focus for discussion with questions such as, “There are more assets than liabilities. Does that mean the net worth will be positive?” 

Daily lessons do not incorporate vocabulary routines. The materials support building student vocabulary by having students write about the vocabulary words at the end of each topic. For example, the Student Companion’s “Topic Review section” has a place for students to expand on challenging vocabulary words by writing the word, the definition, informal explanation/characteristics, an example, and a nonexample. Following the routine of utilizing the “Launch” and “Focus Questions,” as described in the Overview Guide, the materials guide the teacher to start lessons by introducing new terms and connecting previously learned terms to the new content. The materials build from students’ informal language to the formal language of mathematics by making explicit connections. Student Companion activities typically include questions requiring students to explain their thinking or make connections between learned content and real-world questions. In most cases, these require students to write in complete sentences to convey information. For example, in Lesson 6-1, all three parts of the lesson include Before, During, and After questions for the teacher to engage with student discourse, and the Student Companion Guide includes “Do you UNDERSTAND?” questions.

Evaluation for 2.7
Materials contain opportunities for students to apply mathematical knowledge and skills to solve problems in new and varied contexts, including problems arising in everyday life, society, and the workplace.

Materials provide problems within each lesson for students to apply new and existing mathematical knowledge and skills to solve real-world problems to help students connect mathematical concepts to their everyday life. The program provides opportunities for students to solve real-world problems throughout the lessons. Prerequisite activities embed mathematics lessons in real-world contexts; real-world application problems are also embedded in the launch activities, guided practice activities (the interactive parts of the lesson), and homework problems. Launch activities are open-ended and require students to integrate knowledge and skills to make sense of a context and develop efficient solution strategies. While not all lessons provide data analysis opportunities, some do include opportunities for students to analyze data in a variety of thematically and grade-level appropriate contexts. These opportunities can be found in various components of the lessons. Additionally, there are opportunities embedded throughout the program enabling students to read and interpret graphs and tables with information regarding real-world situations and apply them to current learning. Additionally, the materials contain cross-curricular references within the mathematical word problems. They display real-world data and scenarios using pictures/videos, tables, and graphs and include the opportunity to research data in the enrichment projects for mathematical purposes.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The program provides opportunities for students to solve real-world problems throughout the lessons. “Prerequisite Activities” embed mathematics lessons in real-world contexts; forexample, Prerequisite Activity r1 reviews skills necessary for performing operations with rational numbers in a lesson involving running a bakery; Prerequisite Activity r4 reviews skills necessary for measurement with circles in a lesson involving planning zoo habitats; Prerequisite Activity r12 reviews skills necessary for probability concepts by having students compare statistics from a basketball tournament. In addition to prerequisite activities, real-world application problems are embedded in the “Launch” activities, guided practice activities, the interactive parts of the lesson, and homework problems. Most Launch activities are open-ended and require students to integrate knowledge and skills to make sense of a context and develop efficient solution strategies. For example, Launch Activity 2-1 requires students to write and solve an equation about two companies baking bagels. Launch Activity 8-1 prompts students to map out the shortest path along city blocks from a stop sign to a library. Launch Activity 13-4 requires students to find the chances of receiving the correct pair of shoes out of four pairs after receiving an incorrect order. The materials provide opportunities for students to apply their knowledge and skills from multiple units and previous grade levels in problem-solving tasks. For example, the “Do You UNDERSTAND?” portion of the lesson in the “Student Companion” includes exercises that require students to analyze, justify, explain, and check for reasonableness. In Lesson 3-1, the error analysis questions state “Error Analysis. Assume 130 out of 150 students buy lunch each day. There are 180 school days in a year. A classmate writes an equation to find how many lunches will be sold in one school year. Is he correct? Explain,” requiring the students to work through the problem-solving process to complete. The materials require students to integrate knowledge acquired in previous grades and topics to make sense of a problem and solve the problems efficiently and accurately. For example, the “Enrichment” projects for each topic require accessing and activating prior knowledge. Topic 4 requires students to design an animal habitat that consists of a circle, quarter-circle, and rectangle. Students must recall the grade 6 concepts of calculating the perimeter and area of a rectangle and circle. In the Topic 12 Enrichment Project, students organize data graphically using dot plots, as studied in grade 6. The materials contain multi-step problem-solving opportunities for students to integrate knowledge and skills efficiently. For example, when working with real-world percentages in the context of store mark-up for profit and mark-down as sale prices, students are encouraged to use their knowledge of ratios and proportional relationships to solve the problems.

Students are provided data analysis opportunities in a variety of thematically and grade-level appropriate contexts. These opportunities can be found in various components of the lessons, such as the Enrichment, Prerequisite, or Lesson part activities. For example, Prerequisite Activity r2 provides opportunities for students to complete data charts on gym workouts and use the data to answer specific questions. Lesson 7-3, Part 2, requires students to analyze currency exchange data comparing US dollars and Euros. The Topic 8 Enrichment Activity provides an opportunity for students to collect and analyze data on distances of planets and stars from Earth. Lesson 9-3, Part 2, instructs students to analyze a bank register containing data of interest earned on a CD account. The materials provide opportunities for students to analyze data from other content areas and data from the news, provided in grade-appropriate graphs and tables in a way that helps them better understand or draw conclusions about their world. For example, the opening of some units contains data to spark student interest in the topic of the unit. Lesson 1-7 begins its Launch with an image and some statistics about sea level and New Orleans elevation. Lesson 3-3 cites statistical facts regarding the area of land in the United States. Lesson 5-6 utilizes a table for students to chart the information they found and represent data. The materials provide opportunities for students to analyze data from real-world contexts in multiple subject areas, such as science, art, and social studies. The materials present the opportunities in a grade-level appropriate way, using pictures, tables, and graphs. For example, the Student Companion from Lesson 1-7 covers the process of writing an expression to represent elevation levels in relation to sea level and explains how to find altitude at a given time based on the speed of an airplane. The Topic 7 Review gives students three pictures of astronauts with given weights on Earth and the moon and asks them to calculate the weight of someone on the moon given a 102 lbs weight on Earth. Additionally, there is a problem in which students use a scale for a building drawing that has been modified, and therefore they need to calculate the new dimensions of the building. Pictures, tables, and graphs can frequently be found throughout all topics. Additionally, the enrichment projects contain research tasks that, in most cases, require looking up real-world data online. The materials provide opportunities for students to analyze data in real-world contexts. For example, in response to TEKS 7.12 (A-C), students are presented with data from scientific trackings of volcanic and geyser eruptions, as well as monetary data for making purchasing decisions on commercial airline flights. This data is presented in the form of charts and graphs for students to analyze.

Evaluation for 2.8
Materials are supported by research on how student develop mathematical understandings.

Materials are supported by research on how students develop mathematical understandings. The materials partially meet this indicator, as it is clear that a team of authors, researchers, and professors developed this material; however, there are limited citations on the research used to create this material or the ideals on which it is based. The publisher explicitly indicates that some of the components of its material are based on research. The “Program Overview Guide” does have a bibliography specifically for its English Learner (EL) strategies; however, it does not specify the research referenced for each component. Supporting research to meet the needs of English learners is warranted. However, the program does not describe the content and demographics of other Texas-specific demographics. The material does not provide a bibliography for the general structure of the materials and provides little guidance on what specific research-based strategies are being used for lessons and tasks. While the material does not cite publications for the strategies embedded in the program, it does cite the published works of the authors of the program, which adds validity to the publisher’s suggested approach. The “Authors and Advisors” section of the program overview describes the expertise provided by authors and advisors of the material.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The publisher explicitly indicates that the following components of its material are based on research, for example, problem-based interactive learning, as cited in the Overview Guide: principles for building EL lessons, as noted in the Overview Guide, and the intervention lessons in the Overview Guide. The Program Overview Guide does have a bibliography specifically for its EL strategies; however, it does not specify the research referenced for each component. The publisher provides a thorough description of their program but provides few research citations for the general framework in the teacher guides or lessons. However, the materials provide significant research citations for the ELPS framework. For example, the Program Overview provides a bibliography for the overview of the EL-directed framework of instruction within the materials, as well as the philosophy of building mathematical understanding with EL students. The Program Overview Guide cites 11 different authors and advisors of the Digits program, many of whom are published authors, professors, and researchers in the fields of K–12 Mathematics. For example, Francis (Skip) Fennell served as NCTM President and was a writer for the NCTM Focal Points. He was also a writer for Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. The program overview uses the term “research shows” on multiple occasions; however, it does not cite the research referenced. For example, “Research shows that introducing new ideas by having students solve problems in which those ideas are embedded develops deeper understanding than other methods,” but the text does not cite the research.

While the materials provide guidance for instruction to enrich the educators’ understanding of mathematical concepts, they do not cite supporting research, nor do the materials cite research that would support the educators’ understanding of the validity of recommended approaches. The materials do not cite or reference research outside of the extensive citation for EL-directed instruction. However, the program overview lists the authors and advisors with a background for each individual. The authors and advisors have published articles and books; this information enriches the educator’s understanding of the validity of the publisher’s approach. For example, the Program Overview states that one of the authors, Helene Sherman, co-authored the book Teaching Learners Who Struggle with Mathematics, published by Merrill. Another author, Art Johnson, has published numerous books, including Teaching Mathematics to Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students, Teaching Today’s Mathematics in the Middle Grades, and Guiding Children’s Learning of Mathematics, K–6. Several other authors and advisors have published work or worked for NCTM. The Program Overview states that approaches are research-based to enrich the educator’s understanding of the validity of the curriculum’s approach, yet the materials do not make a formal reference to specific research. For example, when referencing problem-based learning in the “Rigor” section of the Program Overview, the materials state, “Research shows that introducing new ideas by having students solve problems in which those ideas are embedded develops deeper understanding than other methods.” In the “Math Background” section of the “Teacher Guides,” each lesson provides information regarding previous lessons, the focus of the current lesson, and what concepts the lesson builds toward. The TEKS and ELPS are cited; however, there is no research-based guidance cited for the lessons.

The material only cites research for EL strategies; that research is current and relevant to its targeted subpopulation in developing mathematical skills. According to the Texas Education Agency Division of Research and Analysis, English learners account for approximately 19% of all Texas students as of 2019; thus, supporting research to meet the needs of this demographic is warranted. However, the program does not describe the content and demographics of other Texas-specific demographics. There is no evidence of cited research regarding the development of mathematics. The cited research, limited to EL instruction, ranges from 10 to nearly 30 years old and is therefore not based on current research or practices. It should be noted that the material was written in approximately 2013, so some of the research would be considered current at the time of publishing. The program does a thorough job of addressing the instruction for the EL population, which makes up one of the largest sub-populations of public school students in Texas. The Program Overview lists the TEKS and ELPS addressed in each topic. The Program Overview Guide cites references for foundational research regarding ELPS instruction. There are 27 citations of published articles and papers that range from 1981 to as current as 2008. While The Program Overview lists these references, they are not cited within the program materials. There is no research cited for the structure of the entire program.

There is no evidence that a bibliography is present. The material contains a bibliography for EL strategies in the Overview Guide. The materials include a bibliography only for EL-directed instruction and practices in the program overview. Additionally, there are references to books published by the authors of the material, yet no formal bibliography for the teaching strategies of the general curriculum. The materials contain a bibliography within the ELPS section of the Overview Guide; however, a bibliography for the entire program is not available.

Evaluation for 3.A.1
Materials develop student ability to use and apply a problem-solving model.

The materials present a partial model but do not present a complete model, as outlined in the TEKS. The material does not teach a specific problem-solving model; however, it does include prompts for students to apply problem-solving strategies through multi-step problems that support the development and practice of problem-solving. These multi-step problems occur throughout the lesson components, such as the “Pulling It All Together” sections and the “Enrichment Projects.” The material includes problem-solving opportunities that guide students to use models, find solutions, justify their responses, and check for the reasonableness of their solution. The “Student Companion Guides” sometimes provide prompts for students to reflect on their approach to problem-solving. “Teacher Guides” for lessons provide guidance for teachers to support student reflection of an approach to problem-solving through questioning. The materials also provide problem-solving models/organizers in the curriculum, such as the “Know-Need-Plan” or “Think -Write Organizer.” While the toolbar allows students to access blank organizers, they are not prevalent throughout the materials as a reminder directly to students to use during problem solving. Additionally, the Teacher Guides provide many guiding and reflecting questions on the solutions and approaches students take when solving problems, yet the material lacks prompts provided directly to students on their approach or any formal reflection. The problem-solving model does not provide steps for reflection on the student’s approach to solving problems or the solution itself. There are opportunities incorporated throughout the materials to promote the discussion and discourse of problem-solving, and there are guiding topics to support teachers in asking the appropriate questions to steer the discussion in the direction of what good problem-solvers should think. However, the lack of a specific or complete model keeps this indicator from being Meets.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

While the material includes a graphic organizer of a problem-solving model, it does not introduce a specific model to transfer across problem types. The graphic organizer is housed in the “Grids and Organizers” resource area and is presented in specific lessons. Though problems throughout the material provide opportunities for students to apply the problem-solving processes as outlined in the TEKS, the model itself does not align with the standard in its totality. The graphic organizer only consists of Know, Need, Plan sections. According to the “Program Overview Guide,” the program builds to the TEKS, which “requires a synthesis of both the mathematical process standards and the mathematical content standards…the process standards identify the attributes of mathematical thinking that teachers of all grades need to reinforce.” There are multiple opportunities for students to practice problem-solving. The last lesson within each topic throughout the program is an “Additional Problem Solving Practice,” tying all the skills from the topic together. Additionally, the guiding questions in the teacher guides are conducive to developing problem-solving skills. The materials introduce the Need-Know-Plan problem-solving organizer early in the curriculum and include a solution diagram explaining how to use the organizer, as well as providing a wide array of opportunities to practice and apply the problem-solving organizer. It provides a blank organizer, and the teacher guide provides a suggestion to help guide students. Additionally, the solution box provides a sample completed organizer, along with a step-by-step solution process. The toolbar provides Grids and Organizers to assist students in problem solving. The blank organizers/models include Know-Need-Plan Model, Think-Write Model, “Words-to-Expression/Equation/Inequality,” and several types of Venn diagrams. The teacher guide gives instructions on how to apply them to a specific problem. The problem-solving organizer provides opportunities for students to practice, and the model is primarily grounded in the problem-solving process standards provided in the TEKS, although it lacks reflection on the justification of the solution and evaluation of the process and a check for reasonableness. For example, the Need-Know-Plan model requires analyzing the information given and formulating a plan to solve for what is needed to determine the solution. However, the model stops at the formulation of the plan. Even though a Universal Problem Solving Model is not explicitly introduced or supported throughout the curriculum, students are given opportunities within each lesson to Understand the problem, Make a plan to solve the problem, Solve the problem, and Communicate their solution. 

The material does not teach a specific problem-solving model across concepts; however, it does include prompts for students to apply problem-solving strategies. There are several opportunities throughout the program prompting and supporting the teacher and student to apply a problem-solving process, though the materials do not contain support for how to utilize a specific problem-solving model. For example, the materials include Additional Problem Solving lessons after a topic. For example, the student companion guides have “Do you know HOW?” and “Do you understand?” questions. These questions are generally written in a way to address topics found in the problem-solving process. Several times, it states “Explain” or “Why does this process work?” While there are student prompts within the material to apply the problem-solving model, they are not provided directly to students consistently across all lessons or topics. When looking through the teacher guides, there are frequent suggestions to use the Know-Need-Plan organizer across the topics, primarily with ELPS and struggling learners. For example, Lesson 9-4 provides a blank organizer within the student module and gives a suggested solution for completing the organizer with the problem given when students click on the solution button, along with an in-depth solution process. This example is one of a few instances where blank organizers or prompts are given directly to students in the module, but it should be noted there is consistent mention of using the organizer embedded in the teacher guides, which would be communicated to students. For instance, the teacher guide in Lesson 14-2 suggests opening a blank organizer from the Grids and Organizers menu, with detailed suggestions for guiding students to appropriate application with the problem.

The materials include guidance on ways to prompt student reflection about their approach to problem-solving. For example, the student companion guide’s inclusion of the Do you know how? and Do you understand? questions exemplifies how to use a problem-solving process. Students are given opportunities to correct incorrect thinking, explain a process they used, justify solutions, identify problems, and select tools to help their solution process. While the materials provide opportunities for reflection on topics themselves, the materials lack prompts provided to the student directly for reflection on their problem-solving approaches. It should be noted that there are prompts given to the teacher that are directed toward student reflection of problem solving for all lessons.

The materials provide teacher support for guiding students through problem-solving by giving teachers instructional cues within the “Solution Notes” of the Teacher Guide for each lesson. The materials contain prompts within the teacher guide to support student reflection about their approach to problem-solving. For example, the teacher guide provides guiding questions for understanding for teachers to use before, during, and after approaching different phases of the lesson. These questions are exploratory in nature. Lesson 1-7 lists the questions before solving the problem. Part 1 requires students to understand and analyze given information, as well as unnecessary information. Other questions within some lessons include “Which rate do you prefer to use, minutes per week or hours per year? Explain,” requiring students to analyze information, develop a strategy for comparison, and make sense of the information found and justify. Teacher Guides for lessons provide guidance for teachers to support student reflection of an approach to problem-solving through questioning, such as in Lesson 2-5, which includes the following questions: “How do you know which operations to use in this problem?”, “ How is a two-step inequality like a two-step equation?”, and “How are they different?” The materials provide a significant amount of reflection prompts throughout all teacher guides. Each lesson includes problem-solving, and the Teacher Guides include reflection questions before, during, and after problem-solving. For example, Lesson 5-5 asks students to calculate and order the volume of three square pyramids from least to greatest. The teacher guide provides discussion prompts related to solving the problem and ends with questions on how students' predictions compared to the actual calculations.

Evaluation for 3.A.2
Materials require students to select appropriate tools for the task, concept development and grade.

The materials provide opportunities for students to select appropriate tools for the task, concept development, and grade. The materials provide students with on-demand virtual tools that are appropriate for the grade-level. The materials provide teachers with support in working with the tools. Materials teach students how to use the tools and give them opportunities to select the appropriate tool for the task. This digital program utilizes technology throughout and houses a bank of grade-appropriate interactive tools readily accessible to students during any lesson. The technology tools guide students to solve tasks and understand concepts through videos, simulations, and written directions. The “Program Overview Guide'' presents information about the math tools, informing teachers that they support various aspects of learning. The interactive tools resource center includes detailed guidance on how to use each tool. Teacher guides that accompany each lesson explain which tools are appropriate and efficient for a task. The materials provide online manipulatives, referred to as the “Math Tools,” that are accessible to teachers and students through all modules. When a tool is appropriate for a specific lesson, the lesson walks students through the use of the tool, primarily through a demonstrative video, and the “Teacher Guide” provides an expansion on how to use the tool and its appropriateness. Materials provide students with opportunities to select tools when problem solving, through the completion of homework and review tasks. Teacher Guides provide insight to teachers on tool use, often with specific application details for a problem and suggestions on when the tools may be appropriate for struggling learners. The material does lack hands-on tools and manipulatives and instead has a primary focus on digital tools.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The material houses a bank of grade-appropriate interactive tools readily accessible to students during any lesson. Each tool includes an “Interactive Help Guide” that provides detailed information on how to use the tool. The guide explains how the program uses tools that are “virtual manipulatives that enable users to interact with, develop, and model math concepts in real time. The tools support teachers in constructing and teaching math concepts visually. The tools also support students in exploring variations of a given math concept and deepening their understanding of the concept.” The materials provide opportunities for students to select the appropriate virtual tool to use to solve a task. For example, in Lesson 1-2, the sections of the lesson progress through using integer chips and number lines to represent adding rational numbers. Students can then select the type of tool to use when solving homework problems. Another example in Lesson 1-2, Part 1, demonstrates how students can use integer chips to understand the addition and subtraction of integers. With this information, students can select integer chips from the “Math Tools” center to use while solving subsequent problems in this part of the lesson. The materials provide students with opportunities to learn to use representations from the grade-level TEKS to solve tasks and enhance student understanding of concepts by exploring mathematical ideas and making and testing conjectures. For example, Lesson 2-1 introduces concepts using a pan balance and algebra tiles as virtual manipulatives. The materials provide students with opportunities to select grade-appropriate tools for solving tasks. For example, the resource provides all students access to “Math Tools,” which contains number lines, place-value blocks, area models, fraction and percent models, integer chips, algebra tiles, pan balance, coordinate grapher, 2-D shapes and 3-D figures, data and graphs, probability tools such as spinners and dice, and a calculator. The materials provide students with opportunities to learn how to use grade-appropriate online manipulatives and algorithms for solving tasks and enhancing conceptual understanding. However, as a digital resource, the materials lack hands-on manipulatives and the use of real objects for concept development. 

The program is digital; therefore, most of its implementation involves the use of technology. The technology tools guide students to solve tasks and understand concepts through videos, simulations, and written directions. For example, Lesson 3-1 includes an introductory video that illustrates the concept of measuring angles using a protractor. The next part of the lesson then prompts students to find the measure of angles using a protractor. Because the program is primarily digital, it provides ample opportunities for students to select grade-appropriate technology using its “Math Tools Resource Center.” For instance, Lesson 1-3 provides students with opportunities to use a number line or algorithm to solve problems involving integer subtraction. The materials provide students with opportunities to learn how to use grade-appropriate technology for solving tasks provided in the toolbar throughout all modules. The online manipulatives enhance conceptual understanding as well. The materials provide a virtual toolbox of manipulatives that allows students to use representations from the grade-level TEKS (to name a few: area models, algebra tiles, coordinate graphs, 2D and 3D models, and pan balance). The materials provide this toolbar throughout all of the publisher’s lessons. For example, each lesson contains a homework assignment where students can select the appropriate on-demand tool for working through the problem independently. However, the materials provide some limited opportunities for students to select grade-appropriate technology tools for solving tasks. For example, the Math Tools provides a basic function calculator, but the specificity listed in the TEKS states the necessity of implementing graphing technology.

The materials provide guidance for suggested tools with explanations of how to use and discuss the tools with students. The “Solution Notes” section of the Teacher Guide provides teachers with guidance on how to use the virtual tool. Lessons that include the use of the virtual tool also include a video modeling the use of the virtual tool. The materials explain how students will use the virtual tools, as well as give information regarding the use of virtual tools from previous grades. For example, the “Math Background” section of the Teacher Guide gives teachers detailed information regarding the use of any virtual tools from grade 6 and introduces the tools for grade 7. For example, the Teacher Guides for lessons in Topic 6 inform the teacher that the Fractions and Percent tool would be applicable and helpful for struggling students in specific areas. In some cases, the suggested mode has specific guidance on using the Fractions & Percents tool, such as the Proportionality & Percents mode. The Teacher Guides provide specific suggestions within lessons, detailing which tool students could use to complete a task and how they can use the tool. For example, the Teacher Guide for Lesson 4-3 suggests that students use the 2D Geometry tool to simulate the problem and improve conceptual understanding. The materials provide specific detail in applying the tool to the problem and suggest variations using the tool. 

Evaluation for 3.A.3
Materials require students to select appropriate strategies for the work, concept development, and grade.

The materials provide opportunities for students to select appropriate strategies for the work, concept development, and grade, and guides teachers through introducing and utilizing strategies. The material teaches multiple strategies for many of the topics and provides frequent opportunities for students to choose from strategies when solving problems throughout each lesson. Materials give teachers guidance to support students in choosing a strategy and building on their knowledge to move toward more efficient strategies throughout the units. The “Teacher Guides” provide prompts aimed at analyzing strategies, followed by sample answers regarding possible approaches students may have chosen and how to respond to those approaches through class discussion. The online curriculum presents students with opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts using varying strategies for problem solving.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

Materials prompt students to select a technique (mental math, estimation, number sense, generalization, or abstraction) as appropriate for the grade-level and the given task. For example, Lesson 2-3, Part 1, prompts students to use algebra tiles to solve two-step equations. Lesson 6-4, Part 3, has another example in which the materials prompt students to use a proportion to solve the problem. The materials cue students to select techniques when solving tasks or problems, as well as support students in selecting appropriate techniques when solving tasks through prompts provided by the teacher. For example, Lesson 1-3 provides students with a drag and drop activity to categorize integer subtraction problems by their solution. Students can choose the technique they would like to use to solve the problems, and additional information on one possible strategy is given to the student if they need extra support by clicking the “Sara Says” button. The button displays a video of “Sara” giving a further explanation for turning a subtraction sign followed by negative into an addition sign. Another example is in Lesson 6-3, which asks students to determine which car can travel further on a gallon of gasoline based on ratios of gas to miles given. The Teacher Guide provides prompts for students before, during, and after a task or problem. The during prompt specifically asks, “How is this problem different from the previous problem?” with provided sample answers such as these are mixed numbers, or they need to be converted to improper fractions before solving. This type of guidance is provided consistently across all lessons. 

The materials include prompts that require students to select a technique for solving a task. For example, Lesson 1-1, Part 1, asks, “One of your friends says the number ?/? belongs only in the category Rational Numbers. Another friend says it belongs in each category: Whole Numbers, Integers, and Rational Numbers. Who is correct? Explain.” This question prompts students to utilize number sense and relations to determine the solution. The lesson continues, with Parts 2 and 3 requiring students to utilize number sense and understand generalizations of numbers to find the solutions. Lesson 9-1 has another example, which gives students the option to use ratios, decimals, percents, or mental math to solve the problem. The solutions are then discussed to find the most practical technique. The materials support students in selecting techniques appropriate for the grade level and task. For example, the materials provide questioning prompts for the instructor to assist students in choosing a technique appropriate for finding their solution. Additionally, materials include open-ended responses for students to determine the strategy and technique that best fits their needs. Another example is found in Lesson 9-1, where the use of mental math could be challenging as the ratios are close in value. The teacher is encouraged to discuss with students how this method may not be the most practical for this problem.

The Teacher Guides (and “Solution Notes”) contain examples of support for teachers in helping students to understand appropriate strategies. For example, Lesson 6-5 directs teachers to ask the following question: “Could you have solved the problem using ratios of hours per square foot? Explain whether you think this method is better or worse than finding square feet per hour.” The guide then provides a sample response. Additionally, Lesson 13-7 has a “Focus Question”: “How do you choose a strategy for finding the probability of a compound event?” The guide then continues with questioning strategies and teaching tips to support students in choosing appropriate strategies. The teacher guides regularly provide navigation through appropriate strategies for solving a task or problem. For example, within the Teacher Guides, the “Math Background” section details the progression of the concepts, not only from previous to current to future grade levels but also within the lesson or topic itself, often with a mention of how students move toward more efficient strategies as conceptual knowledge grows. The Teacher Guides provides the teacher with prompts for students to consider their approaches and develop more efficient strategies when solving tasks and problems, particularly in the After questioning for each task. For example, in Lesson 8-1, students learn to relate equations to tables and graphs. One of the Teacher Guide discussion prompts after solving the question includes, “Which of these models do you think is easier to use for finding the rate of change,” which cues students to consider the most efficient display in particular scenarios. 

The materials provide support for teachers in understanding strategies developed within the materials and the trajectory of learning from less efficient to more efficient strategies. For example, the Teacher Guide for Topic 2 explains how the development and understanding of the contents of the Topic apply to future understandings of linear relationships. Topic 2 also notes that students will begin the topic of Equations and Inequalities by ordering lists of steps to form a coherent process for solving them, selecting a property of operations to justify steps for solving, and building logical arguments, and developing proofs. For example, the Solution Notes of the Teacher Guide gives instructors information regarding student understanding within the task, the possible techniques to solve the task, as well as guidance regarding the efficiency of the methods.

The materials support students in learning multiple strategies to solve problems of the same type and provide opportunities to choose from multiple strategies when problem solving. For example, Lesson 5-2 begins with students using a given net to find the total surface area of a cube. As the lesson progresses, students build on their understanding of the figure by learning the formulas in the key concepts section and relating the formulas to calculations using a net. The Solution Notes section states that students may choose a method, such as finding the area of each side and summing the areas or substituting values in the formula. For the same lesson part, it suggests encouraging students to calculate the surface area using different orientations and presenting the opportunity to use the 3D modeling tool. The materials support student learning as well, as it gives them opportunities to solve problems by using multiple appropriate strategies. For example, the Teacher Guide gives instructors information on how to teach students to use a pan balance, algebra tiles, and properties of equality for solving equations. For example, students are given virtual manipulatives such as a pan balance and algebra tiles and encouraged by the supports in the Teacher Guide to select the appropriate tool to solve equations within the lesson.

Evaluation for 3.A.4
Materials develop student’s self-efficacy and mathematical identity by providing opportunities to share strategies and approach to tasks.

The materials support teachers in building students' self-efficacy during concept attainment through the use of guiding questions before, during, and after each part of the lessons. The materials are sequentially organized to allow students to gradually build knowledge while guiding students through productive struggle when problem-solving. Each “Teacher Guide” contains “Solution Notes” that offer additional guidance, ideas, and specific error correction to realign students' understanding and guide them toward strategy building. The tasks provide opportunities for multiple pathways of problem solving, along with possible pathways provided in the Teachers Guides. The materials provide support for teachers to ensure all students are actively learning by providing explicit directives in the “Fostering Student Engagement” sections of the lesson Teacher Guides. The materials use real-life context when introducing topics and presenting problems, thereby making it more meaningful and engaging for students. The “Launch“ sections provide a center point where students may see themselves as mathematical thinkers at the start of each lesson, as introduction videos do include a breadth of diversity. The scripted materials for the teacher provide guided instruction on using multiple strategies. The materials provide multiple opportunities for students to experience mathematics in real-world problems in order to connect their learning to applicable fields of study.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials provide opportunities for students to solve problems in multiple ways, utilizing a variety of tools and strategies, and develop efficient ways, not just a set of memorizable procedures. For example, each topic includes an “Enrichment Project.” Students apply their current thinking and any previously learned mathematical techniques to solve the tasks. Students can work independently or cooperatively to develop strategies to work toward the solution. Key strategies for the development of the mathematics within the chapter can be posted in the room for reference. The materials also provide norms for engaging in mathematics as an act of creativity and experimentation. The materials use real-life context when introducing topics and presenting problems, thereby making it more meaningful and engaging for students because they can draw from everyday life experiences and are more invested in the topics and problems. For example, the majority of the topic opener and Launch sections provide a center point where students may see themselves as mathematical thinkers, with introduction videos that include a diverse cast. Each lesson contains videos where individuals explain upcoming topics and concepts or offer guidance when solving a problem. These individuals represent all Texas demographics. The materials provide opportunities for students to participate and engage with the material and explain their thinking as a community. For example, each lesson includes a section titled Fostering Student Engagement, where students can share their ideas and discuss with their peers. Teachers are provided with appropriate supports for monitoring student discussions regarding the content. The materials support student self-efficacy by providing writing prompts for students to check their understanding of the material. For example, the “Student Companion” section of each lesson includes a “How do you KNOW/Do you Understand” section where students can reflect on their understanding of the content. 

The materials provide tasks that allow students to choose from multiple pathways to problem solve by choosing the methods and tools they have learned. The scripted materials for the teacher provide guided instruction on using multiple strategies. For example, the Launch section of each lesson provides students with a real-world problem in which they must come up with a solution to the problem. The lesson presents the problem to students before the lesson, which allows students a divergent approach to problem solving. The Teacher Guide for the Launch section provides a scripted dialog for the teacher to provide Before, During, and After the problem to allow students to see and work with multiple pathways to a solution. The materials provide multiple opportunities for students to experience mathematics in real-world problems to connect their learning to applicable fields of study. For example, each lesson includes 2–3 sections of problems. The first set introduces the problem in simplistic terms, while the second or third applies the content to a real-world problem. The Teacher Guides, often in the Solution Notes section, provide possible pathways for students and discussion prompts that lead to class discussion of various approaches taken by classmates. For example, in Lesson 4-5, the teacher guide directs the teacher to emphasize that composite figures can be decomposed in multiple ways and challenge students to find as many ways as possible. The solution to the “Close and Check” focus question in Lesson 1-6 points out that there can be more than one way of simplifying an expression, where the Teacher Guide elaborates that, while students can use the order of operations, they may want to use the Distributive Property or other properties of operations for problem-solving more efficiently. The materials showcase mathematics as a field of study with a focus on problem-solving with efficient and generalizable strategies, as opposed to presenting mathematics as algorithms and procedures to memorize. For example, each Topic contains an enrichment activity with a real-world open-ended task where students use their mathematical knowledge from previous and current grades to create a work product that aligns with the project requirements. Students gather data, apply mathematical strategies, and present the final work product to peers or family. The materials provide opportunities for students to solve problems in multiple ways, utilizing a variety of tools and strategies, and develop efficient ways, not just a set of memorizable procedures. For example, each topic includes an Enrichment Project. Students apply their current thinking and any previously learned mathematical techniques to solve the tasks. Students can work independently or cooperatively to develop strategies to work toward the solution. Key strategies for the development of the mathematics within the chapter can be posted in the room for reference. The materials also provide norms for engaging in mathematics as an act of creativity and experimentation.

The teacher guides that accompany each topic and lesson guide teachers on facilitating the sharing of students’ approaches to problem solving. The materials include questioning techniques that provide scripted questions for the teachers and potential student responses that indicate students’ understanding of the information or concept. For example, in Lesson 4-5, the teacher guide instructs teachers to challenge students to find as many ways to decompose a shape as possible. The guide also provides the following scripted question and sample student response: “How can you find the area of a composite figure after you decompose it? The area of the composite figure is the sum of the areas of its parts.“ The materials support teachers in setting up tasks that promote divergent thinking when appropriate in sections such as Fostering Student Engagement, “Teaching Tips for the Key Concept,” and “Connect Your Learning.” Lesson 9-2 provides the teacher the following support: “Move to the Connect Your Learning screen. Start a discussion about real-world decisions and how it is often not possible to be certain which option is the “right” decision. Let students brainstorm factors that affect the decision in the Launch; for example, an individual's decision might be based on projections about how well the movie will do or personal financial circumstances.” Solution Notes provide support for teachers in sequencing the discussion of student strategies. For example, in Lesson 4-6, the guide provides the following as a solution note: “Students should begin to see a pattern in the ratio by the time they complete the third row of the table. Students may say there is not a pattern until they realize that the changes in the ratio depend on the value of the radius. Without explicitly identifying what the relationship is, they cannot tell anything about a circle whose area-to circumference ratio is 6:1. Before showing students the solution, have them test that the same results apply when the radius is an odd or prime number to ensure the pattern works in every case. Point out that if the rule doesn’t apply all the time, they would have to revise the rule to state possible exceptions.” The materials provide directions to teachers on how to set up the discussion of student solution strategies to further student learning of mathematics by carefully sequencing student strategies to allow for student connections between the strategies. For example, the Teacher Guides provide suggested questions for before, during, and after instruction; the anticipated students’ misconceptions; and how to address them. Additionally, Teacher Guides also provide suggested solution strategies to guide teacher facilitation of student problem-solving. 

Evaluation for 3.B.1
Materials prompt students to effectively communicate mathematical ideas, reasoning, and their implications using multiple representations.

The materials prompt students to effectively communicate mathematical ideas, reasoning, and their implications using multiple representations. The materials provide students opportunities to communicate mathematical ideas throughout the lessons, including presenting findings from “Enrichment Projects” and in lesson parts on “Student Companion” guides. The Enrichment Projects give students various modes to present their work, as well as directions to communicate their ideas, process, and findings to family and friends. The materials have frequent opportunities and prompts to work with classmates. The materials contain tasks that can be solved using a variety of mathematical representations and provide opportunities for students to use representations to organize and show their thinking in words, symbols, tables, graphs, and other illustrative diagrams. The materials provide guidance for the teacher in the “Teacher Guides” that accompany each lesson. The Teacher Guides contain tips and strategies on how to elicit students’ communication of mathematical ideas, prompt students to use multiple representations as they communicate their reasoning, and support the development of students’ mathematical vocabulary. Most of the guidance supports include questions requiring students to communicate their responses in oral or written form. Other prompts guide teachers to have students communicate their ideas in various other representations.

Evidence includes but is not limited to:

The materials provide students with opportunities to communicate mathematical ideas throughout the lessons, including presenting findings from enrichment activities. For example, the Topic 3 “Enrichment Activity” prompts students to share their model of a one-hole mini golf-course with family and friends. In addition, Lesson 4-1 directs students to discuss the following with a classmate: “Name the parts of the circle that are key to solving this problem. Identify each of these parts in the diagram. How do you use what you know about solving equations and the parts of the circle that are given to solve the problem?” The materials contain tasks for students to solve using a variety of mathematical representations, such as Lesson 2-7, Part 1, which prompts students to make a bar diagram to solve the problem; Lesson 5-4 Launch, which provides students with multiple solution pathways so that students can solve the task in different ways; and Lesson 6-4, where students can solve problems using proportions or unit rates. When appropriate, the materials contain tasks that ask students to use representations to organize and show their thinking in words, symbols, tables, graphs, or other illustrative diagrams. For example, the Lesson 8-1 Launch activity, which prompts students to illustrate the walking pattern of a friend walking from a bus stop to a museum, represents a rate of change.

The materials include tasks that provide students with opportunities to share and discuss mathematical ideas and representations using visual, physical, contextual, verbal, and symbolic representations. For example, the Topic 3 Enrichment Project Playing the Angles requires students to design and build a model of a hole in a mini-golf course. Students investigate mini-golf course designs, design one of their own, draw blueprints, develop plans, and determine angles and relationships. They create a written summary of the project and participate in a discussion of the model and blueprint with an explanation. The materials contain tasks that require students to organize their mathematical thinking, followed by communicating their process and solution/final product to others. For example, the Enrichment Projects of each topic ask students to showcase their knowledge through various mediums. Some mediums consist of creating and using graphs to make predictions to include in their created comic book in Topic 8 and creating a news conference video that includes graphs and probability to support the student’s decision in Topic 12. The Enrichment Projects also have students review their process and findings with family members or friends, and they typically entail communication with classmates. 

The materials provide teacher guidance in the Teacher Guides that accompany each lesson. The Teacher Guides include tips and strategies on how to elicit students’ communication of mathematical ideas, prompt students to use multiple representations as they communicate their reasoning, and support the development of students’ mathematical vocabulary. Most of the guidance supports include questions requiring students to communicate their responses in oral or written form. Other prompts guide teachers to have students communicate their ideas in various other representations. For example, the Teacher Guide for Lesson 1-6 prompts teachers to “encourage students to use diagrams like these as they begin to solve problems involving the Distributive Property.” Lesson 2-1 prompts teachers to “Start a conversation about possible equations students may have written in the Launch. Ask students why both work. Listen for students to identify the relationship between multiplication and division.” Lesson 3-7 prompts teachers to ask students, “What does the phrase ‘degrees apart’ suggest that you need to find in order to solve the problem?” 

The Teacher Guides include focus questions, guiding questions, and embedded mathematical vocabulary. The materials provide teachers with a vast number of prompts that promote mathematical communication, both orally and in writing. For example, all lesson Teacher Guides include discussion prompts for each lesson part before, during, and after tasks/problems. These discussion prompts also encourage students to record mathematical thoughts and processes on their student companion sheets or digitally. The materials supply teachers with guiding prompts that support students by strengthening students' understanding when working with multiple task-appropriate representations. For example, the Teacher Guide for Lesson 1-5 provides the teacher with guiding questions that assist in the concept attainment of ordering rational numbers as the teacher discusses the conversion of fractions to decimals and focuses on different forms of decimals that represent rational numbers. The teacher guide also provides scaffolds that focus on the two different number representations, either fraction or decimal form. In Lesson 3-5, the focus question asks, “How can you describe the relationship between the angles that are opposite each other?”—requiring students to communicate the relationships found in mathematical situations effectively. The before/during/after questions utilized throughout the lesson encourage the use of mathematical vocabulary, after the “Key Concepts” component of the lesson introduces the mathematical vocabulary for the lessons. These terms are reiterated through the questions. Some of the questions ask students to communicate verbally whether solutions are right and why. The materials include prompts for teachers to support student reasoning with multiple representations. For example, each lesson provides teachers with scripted, open-ended questions for guiding student understanding located within the “Preparation Notes” of the Teacher Guide. The materials also support student vocabulary building by having students write about the vocabulary words at the end of each topic. For example, the Student Companion’s “Topic Review” section has a place for students to expand on challenging vocabulary words by writing the word, the definition, informal explanation/characteristics, an example, and a nonexample. The materials provide scripted teacher supports explaining and discussing vocabulary. 

Evaluation for 3.B.2
Materials provide opportunities to discuss mathematical ideas to develop and strengthen content knowledge and skills.

The materials provide opportunities to discuss mathematical ideas to develop and strengthen content knowledge and skills, but they do not include guidance for the teacher in structuring and facilitating discussions. The materials intentionally provide opportunities for students to engage in mathematical discussions in a variety of group settings, including with peers (in lesson parts); with the teacher (prompted by the teacher before, during, and after instruction with guided questioning), and outside of the classroom (found in many of the “Topic Enrichment Projects”). The materials include opportunities for discussion throughout the lessons, beginning in prerequisite and launch activities, in the middle in lesson parts in student companion guides, and at the end in topic reviews to support concept and skill development. All lesson parts include prompts to discuss before, during, or after, and, in some cases, all three. The “Student Companion” guides used by students as they work through lessons often instruct students to discuss a problem with a partner and give prompts or details on what should be discussed and sometimes how. The materials lack guidance for teachers on structuring discussions.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials intentionally provide opportunities for students to engage in mathematical discussions in a variety of group settings, including with peers in lesson parts. For example, Lesson 1-2, Part 2, prompts students to discuss the following with a classmate: “Circle the keyword in the problem statement. Read the word out loud. Give a definition of the word. What symbol used in the problem is a clue about what the keyword means?” It also prompts them to discuss with the teacher before, during, and after instruction with guided questioning. For example, in Lesson 5-1, the teacher guide prompts teachers to have students compare and contrast three different boxes during the lesson. They can discuss outside of the classroom, as found in many of the Topic Enrichment Projects. For example, the Topic 7 Enrichment Project for Proportional Relationships provides an opportunity for students to take on the role of a movie director. Students use what they have learned about proportional relationships to give their set-building crew instructions on building a scale model prop of a famous landmark for the movie. At the end of the project, students evaluate their work based on the project checklist and review it with a friend or family member. The materials use “Prerequisites Assessments” at the start of the unit to determine how to use student groups and differentiation with each student. Small group instruction is recommended for struggling students during “Prerequisites Lessons” and “Intervention Lessons.” The “Program Overview Guide” recommends the use of small-group interactions and peer questioning with whole class, heterogeneous groups, or pairs while students engage in real-life projects. Additionally, it recommends completing the “Make Connections” at the end of each lesson as a “Think-Pair-Share” exercise or in a small group. 

The materials include opportunities for discussion throughout the lessons to support concept and skill development. For example, at the beginning of each lesson, students participate in thematically-focused prerequisite lessons. Some prerequisite lessons allow students opportunities to discuss current mathematical concepts. For example, Prerequisite Lesson 2 provides students an opportunity to discuss mathematics in physical fitness. In the middle of the lessons, the Student Companion guides often provide prompts for students to discuss their problem-solving processes and solutions with classmates. For example, Lesson 2-2 Part 3 prompts students to discuss the following with a classmate: “Divide the word sentence of the problem into three parts. Read each part out loud. Then show how you wrote each word phrase using math symbols.” “Topic Reviews” finish each topic and provide students opportunities to discuss what they have learned from that topic. For example, at the end of Topic 9, the closure question asks students, “When is it most convenient to use percents?”

The materials intentionally support discussion throughout all phases of content and skill development. For example, throughout the lesson cycle, there are numerous opportunities for the students to engage in discussion. Each lesson is structured with a “Focus Question,” “Launch,” “Key Concept,” 2–3 Parts, and a “Close and Check,” which includes Do you know HOW? and Do you UNDERSTAND? portions. At the beginning of each lesson, the lesson poses the Focus Question, and throughout the Launch, Key Concepts, and all Parts, notes in the Teacher Guide include questions and conversation starters for before, during, and after the phase of the lesson. During the Close and Check, students review and discuss the Focus Question before the students work with a partner or group to address the Close and Check questions. The Close and Check questions are generally argumentative discussions, like Lesson 2-2 Do you UNDERSTAND?, which includes one question on writing with students describing the strategy used, and another on reasoning, requiring a student to justify the reasoning when solving a problem. 

While the materials provide Teacher Guides for each lesson with a variety of open-ended questions for discussions, the materials lack guidance for teachers on structuring discussions. The materials lack guidance on how to structure discussion, and while the materials provide discussion prompts, they do not provide the methodology of carrying out the prompts or responses for the class as a whole. The materials do provide structure for specified designations in the ELPS groups. For example, in Lesson 9-6, the ELPS instructions are broken out between beginning, intermediate, advanced, and advanced high groups. The advanced group must ask “each other questions about markup and markdown to assess their understanding.” During this time, the teacher is advised to monitor their language to assess understanding.

Evaluation for 3.B.3
Materials require students to justify mathematical ideas using multiple representations and precise mathematical language.

The materials provide opportunities for students to justify mathematical ideas using multiple representations and precise mathematical language. The materials provide opportunities for students to use various mathematical representations, such as symbols, verbal descriptions, and graphs, to justify their mathematical thinking. The materials include several instances where students can justify their answers in a variety of ways, based on their preference. Additionally, the materials provide prompts for teachers to guide students into building on their understanding by questioning the student’s original responses or differences in mathematical justifications between classmates. The materials provide opportunities for students to justify mathematical ideas using whole group and small group discussions. Materials guide teachers in supporting students in these discussions in the form of scripted questions with possible answers, as well as background information. Students can also justify mathematical ideas using “Enrichment Projects” and presentations of their ideas. 

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials provide tasks for students to justify mathematical ideas and present those arguments to the class. For example, each lesson includes “Do you know HOW?” and “Do you UNDERSTAND?” sections at the lesson conclusion, including opportunities for students to construct their arguments and mathematical ideas. Lesson 5-3 includes a “Compare and Contrast” question, where students need to communicate the similarities and differences between two 3D figures verbally. The “Teacher Guide” recommends completing this section as a partner or small group activity, so the students communicate verbally as well. 

The materials provide students with opportunities to justify their mathematical statements using various representations such as verbal descriptions, symbolic forms, models, and graphs. For example, the “Student Companion” presents opportunities to verbally share mathematical ideas with classmates in addition to walking classmates through written justifications. Lesson 2-6 gives students three possible scenarios that may match a given inequality. It asks students to choose a description they think does or does not match the symbolic form, verbally justify their selection to a classmate, and write out an explanation of any errors they made in their justification. As another example, in Topic 5, students can justify their solutions to surface area problems using nets or formulas, as well as using their contextual understanding that two of the same shapes with the same dimensions have the same area, in which case they can justify their solutions more efficiently.

The materials provide routine prompts throughout lesson parts to guide students in constructing their arguments and self-analyzing their approaches so they can compare to alternate approaches taken by classmates. For example, the materials list discussion questions that build on current knowledge and understandings during a task, using suggested follow-up inquiries made by the teacher. In Lesson 1-3, the teacher asks, “What problems can you solve using rational numbers that you couldn’t solve with whole numbers?” For example, several teacher guides across the topics suggest the use of a “Think-Write” organizer. In Lesson 2-1, the Teacher Guide suggests the use of a Think-Write organizer to justify each step of a solution to an equation. In this scenario, the guide suggests that the teacher pull the organizer up on the whiteboard and have students take turns writing the reasoning for a step, followed by another student writing the corresponding equivalent equation. 

Additionally, the materials also provide routines within the lesson structure in the teacher’s guiding questions to facilitate class discussions. For example, the Teacher Guide for each lesson provides an “Essential Question Connection” section that gives teachers background knowledge of the content connections, as well as discussion questions to deepen student understanding of the content. The questions provided when making connections between proportional relationships and equations include “How can you tell if an equation represents a proportional relationship?” and “Which method of distinguishing proportional relationships—using a table, graph, or equation—do you prefer?”

Evaluation for 4.1
Materials include developmentally appropriate diagnostic tools (e.g. formative and summative progress monitoring) and guidance for teachers and administrators to monitor progress.

The materials include developmentally-appropriate diagnostic tools (e.g., formative and summative progress monitoring) and guidance for teachers and students to monitor progress; however, they do not include formal methods and guidance for students to track their own progress and growth, nor is it documented that all content and process skills are measured. Students receive formal and informal assessments throughout the lessons and topics and can showcase their understanding in a variety of ways, particularly in the “Enrichment Projects.” The materials include formal assessments, such as “Prerequisite Assessments,” topic and unit tests, and informal assessments such as “Got It?,” “Do You Know HOW?”, and “Do You UNDERSTAND?” problems and developmentally-appropriate diagnostic tools. The tools are designed to allow students to demonstrate understanding in a variety of settings, including whole group, small group, and peer-to-peer and in a variety of ways, including through discussions, pencil and paper, computer-based, and performance-based questions. The materials support the administration of each diagnostic tool, providing recommendations for administration. The materials do not, however, include formal methods and guidance for all students to track their own progress and growth. The diagnostic tools are designed to measure all content and process skills as outlined in the grade-level TEKS; however, individual assessment items do not have the associated standard attached to them to determine if, indeed, all standards are assessed.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials include formal and informal developmentally-appropriate diagnostic tools. Each unit includes a Prerequisite Assessment designed to assign students to leveled learning groups. The end of each topic has a test designed as a summative tool, assessing mastery toward the related lessons within the topic. Additionally, the materials include informal assessments, such as Got It? Problems, throughout each lesson. For example, Lesson 1-1 directs students to write a positive or negative number to represent the change described in a situation and to describe the opposite change in words and with a number. Do You Know HOW? problems at the end of each lesson check for procedural fluency, for example, in Lesson 1-3, “Write and simplify a subtraction expression for the number line model.” Do You UNDERSTAND? problems at the end of each lesson check for conceptual understanding, for example, in Lesson 3-1, “Can the sum of an acute and a right angle be equal to the measure of a straight angle? Explain.” The “Pull It All Together Tasks” are performance tasks at the end of each topic, in which all concepts from the topic culminate into a multi-step problem-solving activity. The materials include a category of materials labeled “Progress Monitoring,” with three subcategories—“Diagnostic Assessments,” “Unit Assessments,” and Prerequisites Assessments. Diagnostic Assessments contain a beginning-of-the-year assessment that can be administered digitally with mostly open-ended questions that address skills from prior grade levels. Unit Assessments contain a summative assessment for the end of the unit (six total), a Mid-Year Test, and an End of Year Test. Each unit of instruction has a unit Prerequisite Assessment, designed to assess student readiness for new content. Teachers can administer these in both digital and print formats. The materials include “Close and Check” questions for each lesson as an informal formative assessment at the close of the lesson to determine if the students understand the day’s concepts and can answer the daily “Focus Question.”

The “Program Overview Guide” guides teachers through the structure of the materials, including information on how to use the various diagnostic tools and formative assessments. For example, the Overview Guide explains that the unit prerequisite diagnostic assigns students to a learner level based on their results (threshold of above 70% versus below 70%), but the teacher can change the threshold or move an individual student to a different learner level assignment. The Prerequisite gives the teacher easy-to-find links, enabling them to assign the diagnostic to a class, group, or student; add the diagnostic to a “playlist”; as well as edit the prerequisite by removing questions. The teacher also has a link to the remediation lessons that result from the diagnostic. The materials include recommendations for teachers to use with struggling or advanced students during formative assessments, which incorporate suggested tools or extensions. For example, Part 3 of Lesson 12-1 provides detailed solution notes with recommendations to guide students in the right direction and extends this by providing tips for struggling and advanced students. Specifically, for struggling students, it suggests that the teacher “Lead a discussion about why colleges accept more students than they have spots in the freshman class.” For advanced students, it advises the teacher to develop a “full plane” formula to calculate an airline ticket price with the ability to use several methodologies. The materials provide pacing guides for lessons and diagnostic tools. For example, the Unit A Teacher Guide lists a pacing of 12 days for the entire unit. Teachers should administer the prerequisites assessment on day 1 and the unit summative on day 12. 

While the materials provide a few recommendations for teachers to have English learners self-check their progress, mainly for the acquisition of language versus attainment of mathematics proficiency, the materials do not include formal methods and guidance for all students to track their own progress and growth. The materials provide students with solutions to the problems within the lesson, as well as immediate feedback, through the “MathXL for School” online grading system on their assessments, such as the prerequisite test, unit test, and topic tests. However, this is the extent of feedback that students receive, and the materials lack focus on progress reflection and growth tracking.

The diagnostic tools are designed to measure all content and process skills outlined in the grade-level TEKS as presented in the Program Overview Guide; however, individual assessment items do not have the associated standard attached to them to determine if, indeed, all standards are assessed. The tools have a cluster of student expectations attached, indicating which standards are assessed within the entire assessment. For example, Topic 7 Test covers standards 7.4A, 7.4B, 7.4C, 7.4D, 7.5A, and 7.5C—this information is found in the “Resource” tab by clicking the graph icon. The diagnostic tools, including the Beginning of Year, Mid-Year, and End of Year tests, Unit Tests, and Prerequisite Assessments, have all been aligned to measure the content standards of the seventh-grade TEKS. The Homework and Practice cite content standards. For example, Lesson 2-2 cites the process standard 7.1A and 7.1G and the content standard 7.10A in the Close and Check. The Homework cites 7.10A only, which is not inclusive of all the content standards taught in the lesson and cites none of the process standards. 

Evaluation for 4.2
Materials include guidance for teachers to analyze and respond to data from diagnostic tools.

The materials include recommendations for responding to student needs within mathematics based on data from one of the assessments. The materials provide guidance for teachers to support their understanding of the results of diagnostics tools by Class Results, by Assignment and Class Mastery, and by Standard. Teachers can also click on a data point to view assessment questions that contributed to the score, student responses, and each question’s assignment. The materials provide a variety of suggestions and activities for teachers to use to address the results of student assessments, such as intervention lessons, enrichment activities, and lesson check activities (which are part of the intervention activities). The “Program Overview Guide” mentions that the material is for teachers and administrators. The materials do not explicitly state elsewhere that there is guidance information for administrators; however, administrators can view data results in the data tab. The data can be viewed by class and students, but no evidence was found that data is collected by the school. Administrators can then use the same guidance and support available for teachers to design instruction and respond to data. 

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials include guidance for scaffolding instruction based on a student’s needs as demonstrated on the “Prerequisite Skills Assessments” and offer suggestions to provide scaffolds for the content, process, or product of the content and skills addressed within the unit. For example, at the beginning of Unit D, the Prerequisite Assessment addresses the skills necessary for understanding the four topics within the unit: Ratio and Rates, Proportional Relationships, Representing Linear Relationships, and Percents. If the test shows deficits in any of the skills, the teacher assigns students the appropriate study plans, which could include Equivalent Expressions, Addition and Multiplication Properties, Distributive Property, Simplifying Expressions, Principles of Solving Equations, Order of Operations, Solving Addition and Subtraction Equations, and many others. Depending on the data, the start of each of the four topics would include either an “Enrichment Project,” for those who have mastered the prerequisites, or a small group Prerequisites Lesson. 

The materials provide embedded scaffolds in the homework and prerequisite activity, based on the results of the Prerequisite Assessment in the Unit. Additionally, based on the learner group, teachers can use the scaffolds in the teacher guides that address struggling, on-level, and advanced learners. For example, the Prerequisite Activity for Topic 2 has two separate scaffolded activity sheets for students, Team K Activity for the on-level group and Team G Activity for the advanced group. Team G essentially has the same parameters but must use rational numbers instead of whole numbers as in Team K, and Team G develops their own expressions to use. In addition to this, some students complete remediation lessons rather than completing the activity if they struggled with the Prerequisite Assessment. For example, Part 1 of Lesson 8-1 provides solution notes, but the material also extends recommendations for struggling and advanced learners. The material instructs the teacher to help students remember how to calculate the slope by creating a mnemonic, while advanced learners explain what would happen to the slope if a zip line were going in the opposite direction.

Scores data covers test scores, including detailed standard, question, student, and performance analysis. For example, the “Data” tab of the “Digital Learning Platform” has an option to view class results by assignment or by standard. When reviewing the scores of an assignment, Data displays and color codes the average scores on a completed test (blue = 80%-100%, yellow = 60% - 79%, red = 0% - 59%). From this view, the teacher can click on a bar or point of the graph to see how well individual students scored and their individual responses. Materials provide teachers support for planning instruction and differentiation based on data gathered from the Prerequisite Skills Assessments. For example, each unit begins with the Prerequisite Assessment, which screens every student for an understanding of the unit’s prerequisite concepts. The data of the Prerequisites Assessment develops personalized study plans for each student specific to their deficient skills. Additionally, each topic within a lesson includes Prerequisite Lessons, and the results of the Prerequisite Assessment help determine which students could benefit from the small group instruction it utilizes. 

The materials provide a variety of suggestions for teachers to use based on the results of assessments. For example, individualized study plans are prepared for students based on their prerequisite tests; however, teachers can adjust individualized plans or groupings based on their discretion. The variety of suggestions include differentiated homework, differentiated groupings for the Prerequisite Activity, and specific modifications in the lesson instructions for struggling and advanced learners. Also, differentiated suggestions for ELPS levels beginning, intermediate, advanced, and advanced high are provided for lesson parts, which can be translated to varying levels within the classroom that are non-English Learners. The ELPS guidance gives specific activity instructions tailored to the leveled learning groups. The materials provide teachers with support for differentiating instruction based on diagnostic tools data. For example, when learning about Percent Increase and Decrease, the teacher guide instructs teachers to review writing fractions or decimals for struggling students and allow advanced students to use everyday data to create their own percent decrease scenarios. 

The “Acknowledgements and Copyright” section of the material notes that material is for Teachers and Administrators: “This work is...provided solely for the use of teachers and administrators in teaching courses and assessing student learning in their classes and schools.” The materials do not explicitly state elsewhere that there is guidance information for administrators; however, administrators can view data results in the Data tab. The data can be viewed by class and students, but no evidence was found that data is collected by the school. Administrators can then use the same guidance and support available for teachers to design instruction and respond to data.

Evaluation for 4.3
Materials include frequent, integrated formative assessment opportunities.

The materials reviewed include frequent, integrated formative assessment opportunities. The materials provide routine and systematic progress monitoring through the topic, unit, and prerequisite assessments. Additionally, each lesson has routine “Got It?” tasks that act as formative assessments. The materials accurately measure and track student progress in each lesson through the “Close and Check” section and algorithmic tasks and methods such as reasoning questions and error analysis. The materials also accurately measure student understanding at a Topic and Unit level through assessments and track their progress through the year on a TEKS standard basis, where students’ mastery status on a standard is updated as new tests are submitted. 

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials include suggested pacing and routines for checking the progress of students. For example, the “Progress Monitoring” portion of the program includes a “Diagnostic Assessment,” which teachers deliver at the beginning of the year, a “Mid-Year Test” given after the delivery of the first three Units, and an “End of Year Test” given after the delivery of the last three Units. Additionally, teachers deliver a “Unit Assessment” at the conclusion of each unit, as well as a “Topic Test” delivered after each topic. The progress monitoring opportunities accurately measure and track student progress. For example, the beginning, middle, and end of the year tests are spaced out throughout the year and assess the same standards so that the classroom teacher can make an accurate comparison of a student’s growth throughout the year. Additionally, teachers can also compare the Unit Assessments delivered throughout the year to the Beginning of the Year Test to see how students have grown immediately following content instruction. Teachers formally and informally administer diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments at regular intervals throughout the curriculum. “Math XL” grades the diagnostic and summative assessments, providing progress monitoring data for each student. 

The materials provide routine and systematic progress monitoring opportunities that allow teachers to gather information regarding student understanding throughout a Lesson, Topic, or Unit. For example, each Lesson has “Got It?” sections embedded in the lesson that act as checks for understanding. More systematically, materials provide an assessment at the end of each topic, as well as an assessment at the end of an entire unit. Both assessments provide real-time results for teachers with direct feedback on which standards students need additional practice. The materials accurately measure and track student progress in each lesson through the Close and Check section. For example, in each lesson’s Close and Check, a student receives a variety of assessment types. These assessments typically begin with an open-ended question relating to the lesson, followed by two to three “Do You Know How?” questions that assess the student’s ability to perform mathematical functions, and end with two “Do You Know Why?” questions that assess a student’s conceptual understanding through a variety of ways such as reasoning questions and error analysis. Additionally, the materials contain a “Data” tool that allows teachers to see what standards students have mastered on assessments. As noted in the materials, “The scores show the results from assessments taken so far this school year, so a student's mastery status on a standard may change as new tests are submitted.”

The materials include an appropriate frequency of assessment that reflects the variable rate of student learning at this age. For example, there are three cumulative tests throughout the year, assessing the bulk of the grade level content. Additionally, the materials deliver Unit Assessments throughout the year after each unit. These assessments focus solely on the content just taught. The materials provide options for progress monitoring as appropriate for the age and content skill. The types of questions utilized throughout the materials are aligned with the grade-level content, as written in the TEKS. Additionally, the question format aligns with the multiple-choice format of STAAR. Additional formatted questions are appropriate for the grade level and content. For example, the Unit D Test has some open-ended questions and uses situations to address the content of the unit, referencing how many pages a person reads in an hour, the information found on a cereal box, and a family camping. 

The materials guide teachers in administering progress monitoring assessments in an appropriate frequency for students at this grade-level. For example, each topic ends with a formal topic assessment, and each unit ends with a formal unit assessment. The materials organize the results of these assessments so that teachers can view mastery by standard and question, as well as view results by the student or the class as a whole. The materials provide options for progress monitoring through various views in the Data function of the digital materials. For example, the materials update the standards students have mastered during the school year as they take assessments. There are options to sort the report by student mastery of that standard, as well as providing a description and link to learning resources for a standard when the teacher clicks on a particular standard code. Additionally, the teacher can see progress after a student has taken a prerequisite assessment to view recurring gaps.

The materials instruct teachers to provide regular formal and informal assessments of specific age-appropriate content as outlined by the TEKS. For example, teachers administer formal prerequisite assessments before each of the seven Units, and the materials suggest intervention lessons for each student based on the results of these assessments. Teachers administer formal Summative assessments at the end of each Topic and Unit. For example, the end of each lesson provides informal assessments with the use of the formative Do you KNOW? and Do you UNDERSTAND? questions. The materials provide age-appropriate progress monitoring through formal assessments administered three times a year. For example, the curriculum includes Beginning of Year, Middle of Year, and End of Year assessments to help monitor students’ progress through content development. 

Evaluation for 5.1
Materials include guidance, scaffolds, supports, and extensions that maximizes student learning potential.

The materials provide recommended targeted instruction and activities for students who struggle to master content, as well as those who have mastered the content. Lesson pre-assessments provide guidance for teachers, indicating students’ learner levels by letter—G for advanced learners and K for struggling learners. Lesson prerequisite activities include different activities for both learner groups G and K. Materials provide struggling students with intervention and remediation lessons. The “Teacher Guides” include readily-accessible differentiated suggestions and supplemental supports to the teacher, which include differentiated instruction sections that provide suggestions for struggling students and for advanced students. However, the resource material does not offer additional activities beyond the targeted instructional suggestions for students who have mastered the content. The material includes enrichment activities; however, the activities are not differentiated for learners at all levels. Advanced students are provided enrichment activities, more thorough tasks, and leveled homework and activities—with the ability to skip the remediation activities if successful on the prerequisite. The teacher has the autonomy to reassign students as they see appropriate.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

Throughout the materials, each topic includes a prerequisite skills lesson. Each topic throughout the materials includes a “Prerequisite Lesson” to engage the students in prior skills and move forward with new information. The materials present these lessons as three separate examples for working through either in whole group or collaborative groups. The materials provide differentiated instruction for both struggling and advanced students, each with one to two suggested adjustments to the activity or questions. For example, the seventh grade Lesson 2.1 suggests that, for struggling students, teachers “Stress the importance of checking the solution by substituting it for the variable in the original equation.” Furthermore, for advanced students, it suggests, “You can use the Algebra Tiles tool to solve the given equation. Use Equation mode. Form the expression x + 3 in the left bin on the tool screen and the expression 11 in the right bin. Remove 3 tiles from each bin to show that the solution is x = 8.” The materials provide an embedded scaffold using the prerequisite assessment at the start of each unit and group students into leveled learning groups based on areas of need or readiness for extensions. Leveled homework and practice problems are assigned based on prerequisite results and are intended to close gaps recognized from the prerequisite assessment. For example, in Lesson i10-3, students review how to add fractions with unlike denominators. Within the remediation module, students use an online manipulative to increase denominators to see a whole fraction bar cut into smaller pieces and compare with a separate fraction bar.

Teacher lesson guides include differentiated instruction sections that provide suggestions for advanced students. For example, Lesson 8-1 suggests that teachers ask advanced students how solutions would be affected if slopes were changed in a specific direction. However, the materials fail to provide activities for students who have mastered the content. There is no evidence supporting guidance for targeted instruction. Each lesson does have two versions of the homework, one “at grade level” and one at a more simple level, both of which state “This item counts toward mastery of the standards.” Each lesson does have an “Enrichment Project” guide, which teachers could use for extension and deeper learning; however, the lessons themself do not provide recommendations for upward scaffolds.

Materials provide lesson plans for teacher use, which contains Teacher Guide links. The teacher guides give instructions for both struggling and advanced learners. In Lesson r8, one activity separates teamwork into Team K, for struggling learners, and Team G, for advanced learners. Advanced learners get similar instructions to struggling learners; however, advanced students receive added complexity by calculating ingredients for a two-tiered cake and not being given the perimeter, as was given to Team K.

The resource provides enrichment activities that it refers to as Enrichment Projects. For all 14 on-grade level topics, the resource provides one enrichment project. The projects, however, have limited differentiated activities for learners at varying levels. For example, Topic 10 includes an enrichment project that requires students to conduct research, estimate animal populations in local areas, and prepare presentations to share results. Materials provide enrichment projects for students who have mastered the content in the prerequisite assessment but also for those students working through the re-teach lessons. The enrichment projects provide teacher notes on how to differentiate for struggling versus advanced students. For example, Enrichment Topic 11 explains that struggling students are given keywords to help them research an upcycling process with materials, while advanced students are asked to research the actual process of how plastic is recycled and determine how much is reincorporated into new plastic products. 

Evaluation for 5.2
Materials provide a variety of instructional methods that appeal to a variety of learning interests and needs.

The materials provide a variety of instructional methods that appeal to a variety of learning interests and needs; however, they only provide some guidance to support the teacher in selecting instructional methods and strategies and facilitating the grouping of students. The lessons provide a variety of instructional approaches for different learning interests and needs, which entails technology, graphic organizers, engaging videos, and diverse cultural representation. Program material includes lessons that incorporate a variety of different instructional approaches, including whole group, independent practice, guided instruction, and group collaboration. The material does not, however, guide teachers in selecting appropriate teaching strategies to meet the needs of individual students or assist teachers in understanding how and when to use developmentally-appropriate strategies. The program markets a flexible design that encourages teachers to adapt the material to their unique teaching styles. The program material provides activities and routines for whole and small group instruction and some suggested activities for one-on-one interventions. Program materials provide students an opportunity to practice with the teacher and peers but do not support the teacher in facilitating the flexible grouping arrangements. The materials provide opportunities for differentiation and support, as well as exploratory learning; however, they provide little guidance for the teacher regarding when and how to adjust the student grouping.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials use multiple teaching strategies and teaching methods to meet students’ different learning needs. Each topic offers several lessons and the lessons contain a “Launch” or introduction and “Parts” representing teaching and practice where these various teaching methods can be found. Each lesson details techniques, strategies, questions, models/manipulatives, or implementation; suggests ELPS to incorporate throughout the lesson; details math background including content from prior exposure and the alignment to current content; and features a differentiated instruction note throughout each part of the lesson that details what to look for with struggling students and the enrichment activities that advanced students can complete. For example, in the seventh-grade materials, Lesson 8-4 includes incorporating coordinate planes and equations and ELPS 3B, connection to prior lessons with the information presented in tables, and identifying patterns. It identifies student misconception of recognizing vertical change over horizontal change, as some may try to inverse this. The materials include videos, hands-on, concrete practice with manipulatives or online embedded activities, solve and check problems with solutions, suggested group work for collaboration, as well as enrichment activities geared toward engaging students with real-world applications. Each of the enrichment activities includes a variety of instructional approaches as well. For example, Lesson 6-2 begins with a problem with animation followed by a problem with an associated diagram. The remainder of the lesson contains more animation and diagrams ending with a drag-and-drop practice problem. 

The presentation format for each lesson throughout the materials is identical, but the activities within the lessons support the use of a variety of instructional strategies to support delivery. Developmentally-appropriate instructional strategies include exploration with digital manipulatives, teacher modeling with the “Launch” and three examples of a new concept, “Close and Check” questions at the end of every lesson for opportunities to problem solve with teacher support, and supporting language with details for which ELPS to utilize throughout each phase of the lesson. The Teacher Guides provide details for each lesson. All guides contain support, suggested questions, note-taking strategies, and techniques for modeling. The elements include TEKS and ELPS, “Focus Questions,” and “Math Background,” which links current content to previously taught skills and content. The “Student Companion” extends the Close and Check with extra practice or extensions. The materials include instructional routines designed to support students in engaging with the content and skills present in a lesson. For example, the on-level lesson has three parts. The digital platform for the teacher’s instruction displays the three parts, and the Student Companion provides students an area for note-taking corresponding with the instruction. The Launch provides the engagement piece with math content with real-world connections to build on prior knowledge and establish new knowledge. The activities bundled within the lesson provide direct and explicit instruction of content. They incorporate animations to pull attention to important details. Finally, the Close and Check ties all components together and summarizes the lesson. The practice continues through the “Do you know HOW?” section and extension of knowledge through the “Do you understand?” section. 

The material provides multiple opportunities for students to engage digitally, including leveled practice activities; digital manipulatives such as number lines, fraction models, area models, and more; paper-based lesson companions; English to Spanish translation; audio read alouds; and a digital glossary. The materials also include an “Enrichment Activity” for each lesson that contains various opportunities for students to engage with the content, such as collaborations and real-world problems in various Project Based Learning activities. The lessons are structured with a digital engagement activity, teacher-led lesson, digital lesson practice with language and audio supports as well as digital manipulatives, digital leveled practice, and a check for understanding.

The materials support the use of a variety of instructional strategies to support delivery. Developmentally appropriate instructional strategies include exploration with concrete, hands-on materials; Math Background sections, so the teacher knows what skills have been taught in prior grades; teacher prompts and “think-alouds” prior to the activity, during the activity, and after the activity; opportunities to problem solve with online, teacher, or group support; and supporting language with pictorial support, videos, multilingual glossaries, and sound play buttons. 

The program material includes “Prerequisite Lessons” with accompanying teacher guides to provide some guidance to help teachers understand how and when to use strategies. Prerequisite lessons separate students into learning groups applicable to the corresponding unit of study. Program material also includes interactive activities designed for individual exploration, for example, in Lesson 12-1, Part 2. While the program does include intervention lessons, these clusters of lessons build foundational skills and do not support students who need one-on-one attention for a particular skill or concept. Intervention lessons are designed for whole or small group. Topic and lesson guides support teachers with Math Background sections that provide information on prerequisite skills that students should have attained to support success in the current topic or lesson objectives. The “Program Overview Guide” includes a flexible implementation plan but only for technology integration. The program does have differentiated homework activities and suggests that teachers adjust instruction based on student performance, but does not provide guidance on adjusting instruction. No evidence has been found that demonstrates how material supports teachers in understanding how and when to use strategies. The program states that it was intentionally designed for flexible teaching based on teachers’ own personal style and best practices. 

The materials provide some guidance to teachers on when to use a specific grouping structure based on the needs of students. For example, materials note that teachers should group students for small group instruction during the prerequisite lessons for those students who demonstrate weaknesses. The teacher guides for each unit, topic, and prerequisite do not show evidence or guidance on which students should receive what type of grouping structure. Additionally, there is no evidence suggesting what specific weakness is identified. The Program Overview Guide states that after administering the Prerequisite Assessment at the start of a unit, teachers “establish student’s learner level” and “Scores are used to automatically assign individualized study plans for each student to intervene in areas of weakness.” However, guidance for specific grouping structure is not evident regarding the new/grade-level content. The materials provide some learning experiences that could be incorporated for individual exploration. For example, each topic within the materials contains a “Topic Project” for students not needing remediation through prerequisite lessons. Topic 6 requires students to research and reference seating plans of various concert venues, calculate probable seating of areas based on the ratios found in their research, and use communication skills regarding their research and calculations. 

While the materials consistently provide grouping between struggling learners and advanced learners via differentiated homework and differentiation of the activities’ tasks, they do not provide a significant amount of guidance for small group instruction, and teacher guides are generally geared toward large group instruction. Note that the program overview does state that the teacher would use prerequisite assessment results to group students between groups K for struggling learners and G for advanced learners for a prerequisite lesson. The materials do provide learning experiences that teachers can adapt to different structures of grouping; however, they do not give explicit instructions on how to implement these experiences within different structures. For example, the prerequisite activities have broken out instructions for Team K and Team G, such as that provided in the prerequisite activity for Topic 8. The materials provide activities for students who need more one-on-one support, as suggestions throughout the curriculum provide additional practice, alternate explanations with the use of manipulatives, and clarification on common errors made. For example, in Lesson 9-3, the guidance provided for struggling learners recommends that if students struggle with converting 5% to 0.05, teachers should give students a hundreds chart and have them shade five squares.

The materials do provide activities for large group and small group instruction. The materials provide detailed guidance regarding the flow and sequence of a lesson, as well as what learning opportunities to provide to students who struggle or students who excel. However, there is no evidence regarding what parts of the materials are best suited for whole group, teacher lead, collaborative grouping, or independent practice. Students can attain individual exploration through the Enrichment Project for each Topic. Each project presents students with a real-world problem in which they must organize, plan, research, write, and present findings related to the content of the Topic. According to the materials, students can complete projects individually, in small groups, or in whole group. These projects align with the prerequisite lessons and can be used for students who do not need review in that content. This recommendation is included in the program guide, but not specifically referenced within each activity’s teacher guide. The materials include diagnostic checks that automatically create an individual study plan for each student. The teacher can modify these plans, and the materials suggest that teachers discuss study plans with students before each Unit. The materials suggest that on-level students with occasional weaknesses work independently through the intervention lessons. It also suggests that students with large gaps use a small group setting such as intervention pull-out or Title 1 class.

The material also provides students with an opportunity to practice with the support of the teacher, such as in teacher-guided instruction as outlined in Teacher Guides with guiding questions and problems to solve; independently; or with other peers, as seen in “Think-Pair-Share” activities and team exercises in the prerequisite lesson. However, the material does not support teachers in facilitating guided, collaborative, and independent practice. The lessons provide opportunities to practice independently, with peers or as a class. While the majority of the guidance is geared to class or individual activities, such as class discussions or student companion documents to work through topics, there are suggested team breakouts within the teacher guidance for each topics’ Prerequisite lesson. For example, the Prerequisite lesson for Topic 7 breaks teams out between Team K and Team G. Within other pieces of the lesson, the teacher guides students through class discussions, and students have companion sheets for individual work or assessments. Sample answers, common errors, and suggestions to guide students to the correct answer are provided in detail for all activities.

Evaluation for 5.3
Materials include supports for English Learners (EL) to meet grade-level learning expectations.

The materials include various linguistic accommodations aligned with the English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) for students who are learning English, particularly regarding their level of English language proficiency. The lesson guides provide explicit instructional suggestions for English Learners (ELs) at different proficiency levels. The instructional strategies are sequenced in a way that supports students at varying levels and allows for repetition that is playful and interactive. The materials provide research-based scaffolds to support ELs. The design of the material, with embedded videos, illustrations, and demonstrations acting as supports that make scaffolding intentional and natural in the lessons. Additional supports include a comprehensive bilingual glossary in English and Spanish and downloadable PDFs that contain word lists and glossaries in Cambodian, Cantonese, Haitian-Creole, Korean, Vietnamese, Hmong, Filipino (Tagalog), Mandarin, and Spanish. The “Program Overview Guide” has instructional strategies provided for every principle of the Building ELL Lessons Framework. The materials encourage the strategic use of students’ first language if their first language is Spanish; however, the materials do not provide the same explicit support for students whose first language is any language other than Spanish. 

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials include various linguistic accommodations aligned with the ELPS for students who are learning English, particularly regarding their level of English language proficiency. Each teachers’ lesson guide includes a section highlighting the ELPS addressed explicitly during the lesson. For example, Lesson 1-4 informs teachers that the lesson aligns with the cross-curricular and reading standards: “The ELL reads a variety of texts for a variety of purposes with an increasing level of comprehension... The student is expected to: (F) use visual and contextual support and support from peers and teachers to read grade-appropriate content area text, enhance and confirm understanding, and develop vocabulary, grasp of language structures, and background knowledge needed to comprehend increasingly challenging language.” The materials provide a variety of effective strategies for teachers to support students at different English language proficiency levels. The lesson guides provide explicit instructional suggestions for ELs at the different proficiency levels. For example, in the same lesson on Multiplying Rational Numbers, the teacher guide suggests that, for Beginning level students, teachers “play the audio and visual for each vocabulary term, instructing students to focus exclusively on the term itself and the image. Then play the audio again for each term, one-by-one. Have students get up and point to places on the number line that represent each term they listen to. For Intermediate level students, pause after playing the audio for each vocabulary term, and have students take notes on what they heard. Then have students use their notes to share with a partner what they know about each term. As you circulate, check for understanding. For zero, students might write not positive, not negative; for whole numbers, students might list 2, 3, 4. With Advanced level students, have students listen to the audio for each of the terms. Then one partner should name a number, and the other student should find its place on a number line. Then they should use the interactive image to classify or categorize that number, and finally, with Advanced High level students, after students have listened to the audio for each of the terms, have them address the following writing prompt: Which of these number types overlaps with another? Explain.” The instructional strategies, as described above, are sequenced in a way that supports students at varying levels and allows for playful and interactive repetition. For example, Lesson 4-5 asks students to determine the figures that make up a composite figure polygon. ELPS instructions/suggestions are provided for the following groups: beginning/intermediate, intermediate, and advanced/advanced high. The instructions for the beginning level consist of providing a list of figures for students to check off when they find a particular figure, and the intermediate extends on this task by having them work with a partner to compare answers and choose a diagram that is properly labeled. The directions for the advanced/advanced high group tasks students with developing a list of tips for other students to use when solving a similar problem. In another example, when learning about adding rational numbers in seventh grade, teachers are encouraged to use pictorial models to define the vocabulary used in the lesson and to physically model what it means to “cross out” one number that is different from others when working with Beginning ELs. In the same lesson. Advanced students are encouraged to listen to the audio instructions and then summarize them for a partner. Students then discuss the differences they heard in the instructions.

The materials provide research-based scaffolds to support ELs. Some of the research is based on the work of one of its authors, Dr. Jim Cummins, who is the Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Centre for Educational Research on Language and Literacies at the Ontario Institute. Dr. Cummins’ research that has helped shape the pedagogy provided in the materials focuses on literacy development in multilingual school contexts. As a result of this and other research on developing academic language, the materials have a defined ELL Curriculum Framework outlined and described in the Program Overview Guide. The design of the material, with embedded videos, illustrations, and demonstrations, provides supports that make scaffolding intentional and natural in the lessons. For example, the topic openers introduce academic vocabulary with a visual representation and auditory explanation of how they will be addressed in the lesson. Additional supports include a comprehensive bilingual glossary in English and Spanish and downloadable PDFs that contain word lists and glossaries in Cambodian, Cantonese, Haitian-Creole, Korean, Vietnamese, Hmong, Filipino (Tagalog), Mandarin, and Spanish. While there are tips and suggestions to help students’ development of academic language and instructional strategies provided for each of the principles of the framework, the materials do not include suggestions for small-group instruction that focus primarily on language development. The materials give extensive guidance on modifying the presentation of mathematical content for ELL students in order for them to gain meaning from the lesson. For example, in the Program Overview, the following are only a portion of suggestions made to guide teachers in appropriate scaffolding for ELL students: “Use Demonstration—providing clear and explicit step-by-step procedures when approaching word problems; Use Manipulative (and Tools and Technology)—an emphasis is made that teachers encourage the use of these tools ‘within the context of a project that students are intrinsically motivated to initiate and complete;’ Small-Group Interactions and Peer Questioning—the materials are laden with suggestions for small group and peer discussion within ELL leveled groups; Use Pictures, Real Objects, and Graphic Organizers—this includes pictures, graphic organizers, real objects, etc.” For example, in many lessons, the use of pictorial models introduces the concept.

The Program Overview Guide provides instructional strategies for every principle of the Building ELL Lessons Framework. These strategies are user-friendly, specific, and include an additional section that relates to an application specifically in the material. For example, Principle 2 is “Frontload the Lesson.” The guide suggests that teachers “focus more closely on using visual supports while walking through a lesson [and teach] discrete skills that are required for successfully reading content-area texts, such as how to read and interpret charts, tables, and graphs” (among other instructional strategies). Then the guide goes further by stating that, to apply this principle while teaching, teachers should preview the lesson by calling attention to key features: titles, visuals, captions, charts, bold or italicized words, and any special features, as well as use self-questioning strategies such as “What do I think this lesson is about, What do I already know about this topic and What do the features tell me?” The materials encourage the strategic use of students’ first language if their first language is Spanish; however, the materials do not follow the same explicit support for students whose first language may be any language other than Spanish. For example, students can find vocabulary words pertinent to each lesson by clicking on an icon in the digital material; students can find a written definition, audio presentation, and Spanish version of the term provided. The materials include specific guidance within each lesson that addresses the ELPS but also gives an extensive toolbox to the teacher in the Program Overview. For example, ELPS guidance and suggestions are broken out by language acquisition levels within the lesson teacher guides. Additionally, the program overview provides a substantial amount of suggestions for teaching strategies that align with the five principles of teaching ELs. The materials provide some guidance to teachers on how to use students' first language to access current vocabulary. For example, in a section titled “Clarify Language,” the materials elaborate on how to use the first language to acquire new vocabulary. The overview explains that because much of the English technical mathematical language has roots in Latin and Greek, the vocabulary has cognates in “Romance languages such as Spanish (e.g., addition—adición).” Per the overview, these languages should be encouraged to use cross-linguistic linkages. The materials also suggest the use of bilingual dictionaries, as the Spanish-English dictionary is embedded in the content already and readily accessible in the toolbar. The use of students’ first language is encouraged in the ELPS section of the Program Guide as an accommodation for formal and informal assessments. For example, possible assessment accommodations include bilingual dictionaries, dual-language assessments, and the use of native language in written responses. The materials also provide students with native language, on-demand support with the use of online Multilingual Glossaries, as well as online Spanish translations for tasks in the lessons.

Evaluation for 6.1
Materials include year-long plans with practice and review opportunities that support instruction.

The materials include year-long plans with practice and review opportunities that support instruction. The materials contain a plan for year-long instruction of the grade-level content and processing TEKS. The program overview supplies teachers with a year-long outline of the material by unit, topic, and lesson. The curriculum is cohesively designed to build upon students' knowledge and skills across grade-levels and within the grade level itself. The “Math Background” provided in the Unit, Topic, and Lesson teacher guides give extensive guidance to the teachers on the review and progression of concepts between grade levels and lessons in the current grade-level. Topics provide ample reviews, and each unit also contains a review that covers all unit topics. Additionally, the materials contain “Mixed Reviews” with spiraled practice of various concepts covered within the grade-level. The materials provide practice opportunities that build in complexity through the Lesson as well as across the Topic.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials include a plan for instruction that spans the course of the year, as well as vertical alignment showing how concepts and skills align in other grade levels. For example, the materials outline the overarching concepts, how they are linked to the Texas Curriculum Focal Points, and in what sequence they should be taught. Each topic notes the TEKS, so the teacher can verify that all the standards are appropriately addressed. The “Scope and Sequence” of the “Intervention Lessons” connect prior skills to current content and align with the needs of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. For example, the Topic “Teacher Guide” details what TEKS are taught during the current set of lessons, what TEKS from prior grade levels align, and what TEKS these new skills will align to in the future. The Topic 3 Teacher Guide notes the current TEKS, 7.11A, and 7.11C. Prior skills include 4.6A, 4.6C, 4.7C, and 6.8A. Future skills include 8.10C and G.6D. The materials include guidance that supports the teacher in understanding the vertical alignment for all focal areas in Math Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills in preceding and subsequent grades. For example, the Math Background included in the Topic and Lesson teacher guides support the teacher’s understanding of current skills, what skills they have learned in the past, and how they are interconnected.

The materials contain an outline of the instruction covered for the year, which includes details of vertical alignment within the teacher guides. The outline also includes an explicit mention of Focal Points, TEKS, and ELPS covered in each unit. The materials are designed to build on students' previous knowledge and skills and sufficiently provide the teacher with vertical alignment details for all focal areas in Math Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills in previous and upcoming grades, as well as within the grade-level itself. For example, the Topic 2 teacher guide begins with a table containing two columns, Looking Back and Looking Ahead, which contain the specific TEKS related to the topic that have been covered in previous grades and TEKS that will be covered in upper grades, as well as the current grade-level TEKs. Following this lesson, detailed paragraphs describe the progression of skills from previously learned grade 6 concepts to how the current grade-level topics will be built on in grade 8. For example, in the Lesson 8-3 Teacher Guide, the math background section begins by stating that students learned about unit rates and constants of proportionality previously in the unit with elaboration on how the previous two lessons in the topic work up to the current concept. It follows by stating that the goal of the current lesson is to understand how each model represents a linear relationship and expands on how the skill will build into modeling and solving real-world problems with linear representation.

The materials contain a plan for year-long instruction of the grade-level content and processing TEKS. For example, the “Program Overview Guide” contains three alignment documents. The first contains an outline of the Units and Topics, and it highlights which Topic covers each of the Texas Focal Points, usually in a range of 3–8 Topics. The second is a more in-depth document that details which topics cover which lessons, as well as the specific content and processing TEKS covered in that topic. The third document in the Program Overview Guide defines each of the TEKS and includes all of the specific lessons in which it appears. Cohesive instruction in the lessons allows students and teachers to make content connections between lessons and previous grade levels. For example, the Teacher Guides contain a section titled “Math Background” that details the instructional purpose of the current unit, topic, or lesson and also gives insight into the methods used to introduce the aligned TEKS in previous grade levels. This section also includes details of how the current instruction will build to later courses. The materials give information in each Topic regarding the vertical alignment of the curriculum. For example, the Teacher Guide for the Topics includes the definition of the TEKS covered in the lesson, as well as a “Looking Back” section that defines the alignment of the TEKS from sixth (and in some cases fifth grade), and a “Looking Ahead” section that defines the alignment of the TEKS for eighth grade, as well as some high school courses.

The materials provide reviews and practice throughout the curriculum and build upon previously taught content throughout each lesson. For example, each lesson throughout the book provides opportunities to practice the content with a variety of application processes. In addition to the differentiated homework included with each lesson, there is also a “Mixed Review.” Lesson 3-3 practices the content of the unit throughout the lesson and within the homework. It includes an additional five questions reinforcing the skills of simplifying expressions with positive and negative integers, solving equations, and graphing inequalities. 

The materials provide reviews on a topic level but also include cumulative reviews that cover an entire unit. Additionally, the materials also include Mixed Reviews in each lesson that cover major areas that span across the various concepts in grade 7. These reviews are consistent across all units and topics. For example, each Topic review contains a vocabulary review task, a “Pull It All Together” activity, a “Topic Close” activity, and a “Topic Review” homework assignment. For example, the 11-1 Mixed Review contains questions covering probability, percent markups, percent determination, direct variation, and angle relationships. The practice materials build upon content from previous grades and within the previous lessons from the current grade level. For example, in Topic 4, the lessons begin with circle terminology, move into calculating circumference, and then move to the area of circles. The topic then moves into the calculation of semi-circles and quarter-circles, followed by the area of composite figures, which requires the calculation of semi- and quarter-circles. 

The materials provide regular and consistent review practice throughout the entire curriculum. For example, at the end of each of the fifteen topics, the materials provide a review that opens with a “Topic Vocabulary Review Game” to be played in either whole group or small group according to the Teacher Guide and a Pull it All Together task that includes a multi-step problem that utilizes multiple tasks from the topic and includes a holistic scoring rubric for teachers to assess student understanding of the content. The review continues with a wrap-up video that culminates content from the lesson with a real-world situation, then presents students with content practice as a review homework assignment. The materials provide practice opportunities that build in complexity through the lesson as well as across the topic. For example, when learning about Equations and Inequalities in seventh grade, the topic begins with Solving Simple Equations, then progresses through Writing 2-Step Equations and continues to Solve Two-Step Equations. The Solving Simple Equations lesson initially presents students with solving equations using whole numbers; then, the lesson increases in rigor to end with solving equations using rational numbers (fractions).

Evaluation for 6.2
Materials include implementation support for teachers and administrators.

The materials support teachers in understanding how to use the materials as intended by including a “Program Overview Guide,” “Topic Teacher Guides,” and “Lesson Teacher Guides.” Additional supports for teachers include the virtual manipulatives in the digital program and the grids and organizers. Teachers can use these tools to model skills and concepts for students. The materials are organized in a way that makes sense for ease of implementation and accessibility. The Program Overview provides the “Scope and Sequence,” along with detailed guidance on the structure and purpose of the lesson parts. The Scope and Sequence documents do not specifically address how the TEKS build and connect across grade levels. The materials guide teachers on routines within lessons, thereby facilitating easier implementation. The materials provide an adequate amount of lessons across all topics, with reasonable and appropriate pacing suggestions provided in the Unit teacher guides. There is a lack of guidance specifically aimed at administration in regards to supporting teachers and using tools to recognize best instructional practices and arrangements in a middle school classroom. While it is inferred that the material is accessible to administrators with the same support provided for teachers, there is no specific information separate for administrators to support teachers in implementation. 

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials include a Scope and Sequence aligned to the TEKS, outlining which essential knowledge and skills are reviewed, taught, and covered in future grades. The Scope and Sequence provides an order for skills presentation; however, it provides no implications on revisiting skills. For example, the Program Overview provides an outline that gives a brief overview of the Unit and Topic outlay within the materials. A more detailed Scope and Sequence follows the brief overview that adds details on specific lessons and projects contained in each topic, as well as the Texas Focal Points, TEKS, and ELPS addressed. For example, the Program Overview Guide contains three Scope and Sequence documents. The first contains an outline of the Units and Topics, and it highlights which topic covers each of the Texas Focal Points. A range of 3–8 Topics covers each of the Texas Focal Points. The second includes a more in-depth document that details the Scope and Sequence of which topics cover which lessons, as well as the specific content and processing TEKS covered in that topic. The third document in the Program Overview Guide defines each of the TEKS and includes all of the specific lessons in which it introduces the TEKS as well as when lessons revisit it. The Scope and Sequence documents do not specifically address how the TEKS build and connect across grade levels.

The materials support teachers in understanding how to use the materials as intended by including a Program Overview Guide, Topic Teacher Guides, and Lesson Teacher Guides. The Program Overview Guide outlines the program, then briefly discusses each component of the program, including core lessons, intervention lessons, and assessments. The Program Overview Guide also provides a rationale for the components of the individual lessons such as the “Prerequisite,” “Launch,” and “Close and Check” activities. This information supports teachers in understanding why the components exist and work together as a whole. The Topic Teacher Guides support teachers by providing vertically aligned standards (on grade level, looking back, and looking ahead), a “Math Background” section narrating skills and concepts students should pull from their background knowledge to apply to the current content, “Essential and Focus Questions” to frame the topic, and a “Topic Planning Guide” that provides the suggested pacing of lessons within the topic. The Lesson Teacher Guides then provide more specificity for each lesson, supporting the teacher in understanding key concepts of the lesson, how to launch the lesson, guiding questions to help students progress toward proficiency, guidance for English Learners, suggestions for fostering student engagement and differentiating instruction, and understanding author’s intent—all critical attributes of the lesson. Lesson 2-3 provides an example of the author's intent when it states: “Students are presented with the same situation they saw in the Launch for the first two lessons. They wrote a two-step equation to model a problem about bagels. Now, they consider whether the same problem can be solved using only one operation. Students should come out of the Launch realizing that not all problems can be solved with one operation; some require two operations to solve.” 

Additional support for teachers, that are also beneficial for students during practice, include the virtual manipulatives contained in the digital program and the grids and organizers. Teachers can use these tools to model skills and concepts for students. The materials are organized in a way that makes sense for ease of implementation and accessibility. Each topic and lesson has the guides in a side panel, and a stationary tab at the top of the page has the tools readily accessible. For example, the Program Overview provides a “Flexible Implementation Plan,” with details on how to implement the materials in low-technology, medium-technology, and high-technology settings. The flexible implementation plan provides suggestions on how to assign assessments, homework, and interventions under various scenarios and suggests specific hardware to use in class and at home if possible. For instance, in low-tech environments, it suggests small group pullouts and pencil and paper. For example, teacher implementation videos and resources are provided on the publisher’s website with access available from the curriculum. Also, the content is easily navigable, with the starting page broken out by grade-level followed by the unit outlay. Once a unit is chosen, it presents topics within the unit, and users can choose topics to view sequenced lessons. It also provides On-Demand training videos. Videos include a “Getting Started” section, which includes a Program Overview; “Teaching an On-Level Lesson:”; and “Unit Structure” overview. Also included are videos for progress monitoring, teacher and student support, MathXL, and platform training. 

The materials do not provide guidance directed at administrators related to supporting teachers in the implementation of materials or any support specifically intended for administrators. That being said, it is reasonable to assume that the administrators can use the program overview with an administrator’s lens to support teachers. 

The materials include lessons and activities for a full year of instruction in a classroom, provided that the school year is equivalent to the traditional 180 days of instruction. The Unit and topic Teacher Guides have realistic pacing guides. 

Evaluation for 6.3
Materials provide implementation guidance to meet variability in programmatic design and scheduling considerations.

The materials provide some implementation guidance to meet variability in programmatic design and scheduling considerations. Teachers have the autonomy to rearrange concepts as they see fit. The materials are designed to allow easy implementation into a variety of school designs. The materials provide suggested pacing of topics and units based on traditional schedules with 45–50-minute classes or block schedules with 90–120-minute classes. The materials include strategic guidance on how to implement the curriculum to incorporate the developmental progression that naturally occurs in mathematics; however, the materials lack guidance in regards to flexibility of rearranging the placement of units and instead depend on teachers to adhere to the scope and sequence to receive the most benefit. The materials are designed for flexibility of implementation, dependent on a school’s design concerning technological accessibility and daily schedule structure. They include options for EL small group interventions that can be translated into a full classroom approach. The materials do not address additional structures such as online-only classrooms or multi-grade classrooms.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials include strategic guidance in how to implement the curriculum to incorporate the developmental progression that naturally occurs in mathematics; however, the materials lack guidance in regards to flexibility of rearranging the placement of units and instead depend on teachers to adhere to the scope and sequence to receive the most benefit. For example, the “Math Background” section passages provided in the unit, topic, and lesson “Teacher Guides” detail the developmental progression of mathematical concepts between topics and lessons, with direct navigation on how current and upcoming lessons build on previous lessons. 

The materials are structured in an order that identifies the developmental progression of the content and skills. It is clear to the user that the content should be taught in a specific order. For example, units are laid out in alphabetical order, and topics are introduced in numerical order, with lessons also listed in numerical order as a subset of each topic. There is no guidance on how to rearrange the order of units within the curriculum. For example, the Teacher Guide for each unit identifies the prerequisite TEKS included within the prerequisite assessment for each unit. Except for a few TEKS (7.3A, 7.3B, and 7.4D), all TEKS included as prerequisites are from previous grade levels. This sequence indicates that units (except for Unit A) could be taught in a different order without disrupting the content of other units. However, there is no guidance for the reorder of units within the materials.

The materials are designed to allow easy implementation into a variety of school designs. The materials provide suggested pacing of topics and units based on traditional schedules with 45–50-minute classes or block schedules with 90–120-minute classes.

The materials provide support for LEAs to consider how to incorporate the materials into a variety of school designs. For example, the materials provide a detailed “Flexible Implementation Plan,” with recommendations based on the school’s technology capabilities. Suggestions for lesson presentation, assessment, homework, intervention, and planning are based on three categories, Low Tech, Mid Tech, and High Tech. Low tech includes online presentations, paper-based assessments, and homework, teacher-selected interventions completed whole group or Title 1 pull-out, and printed TE. Mid tech includes online presentations, online prerequisite assessments, paper-based unit assessments, online homework, printed homework helpers as a backup, teacher-selected interventions completed whole group or Title 1 pull-out, and online teacher guides, with printed program overview. High tech includes all assessments and homework completed online, teacher-selected interventions online with individualized study plans; teachers use the dash and the digits mobile app. For example, the materials provide a detailed implementation plan regarding pacing dependent upon the structure of the school day. The unit “Teacher Guides” pace out each topic based on a traditional schedule versus a block schedule. 

The materials are designed for flexibility of implementation, dependent on a school’s design with respect to technological accessibility and daily schedule structure, and include options for English Learner (EL) small group interventions that can be translated into a full classroom approach. The materials do not address multi-grade classroom implementation or co-teaching. For example, the “Program Overview” provides guidance based on low, medium, and high technology capabilities with specific suggestions on how to approach various parts of a lesson. The unit overviews provide pacing suggestions for both singular period and block schedules. For example, the lesson teacher guides provide guidance on implementing small group structures for specific lesson parts, organized by EL beginning, intermediate, advanced, and advanced high groupings. The suggested small group interventions can flexibly be translated to general learning needs within the classroom.

Evaluation for 6.4
Materials provide guidance on fostering connections between home and school.

The materials provide some guidance on fostering connections between home and school. Other than the inclusion of an informational letter to parents and suggestions in “Enrichment Activities” for students to present to families, the materials lack resources to encourage the development of strong relationships between teachers and families. The parent letter, supplied in both English and Spanish, provides a general overview of the program. The letter gives parents details and assistance accessing the online materials, as well as explaining that homework, lessons, and progress monitoring can be done online. Given that the program is primarily digital with supporting print material, there is an abundance of online access to resources for parents to work with their children on specific skills. Additionally, the materials provide a multilingual glossary that provides terms with visual and verbal examples in 11 different languages. However, the material as a whole is not available in any language other than English. The materials do not provide guidance that outlines any activities specifically designed for use at home to create a school/home relationship.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials lack information and resources to encourage the development of strong relationships between teachers and families. Teachers can send a parent letter describing the program, how students will interact with the program, and how teachers will monitor students’ progress. The parent letters are available in English and Spanish to help ensure parent understanding of accessing the program from home. The letters provided give an overview of getting started with the ACTIVe-book, which allows students to interact with the curriculum, as well as a letter explaining how to get started with the digital program, which contains all the course content. Because this curriculum is available in a fully digital format, students can access the content at school with teachers and at home with parents. They can access homework assignments completed at home through this digital curriculum. The materials do not provide any guidance that outlines any activities specifically designed for use at home to create a school/home relationship. The materials also include “Enrichment Activities” that often suggest students present results to their families, such as in the Enrichment Activity for Topic 2, in which students act as a fitness trainer, planning weekly workouts for a new client, then present the schedule and a project checklist to a friend or family member. Activities such as this one encourage a school-family connection but do not necessarily aid in the development of a strong teacher-family relationship. In another example, the Enrichment Activity for Topic 3 directs the student to review their completed project with a family member or friend with specific guiding questions, such as, “Is your blueprint neatly drawn, with all angle pairs labeled?” After the student revises the project based on feedback, materials direct them to evaluate their project based on the project checklist with a friend or family member.

While there is guidance to support English Learners, guided by the English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS) and a “Multilingual Handbook,” the material as a whole is not available in any language other than English. The materials provide appropriate suggestions or resources for home activities that support the curriculum and that families can easily use through its Enrichment Activities. The materials include online access to the resources for parents to work with their children on specific skills. The materials contain parent letters with instructions on accessing resources, along with a troubleshooting checklist and a link for technical support. The online materials, which are accessible to parents and students from home, provide quick access in the toolbar to vocabulary within that lesson in both English and Spanish, along with examples in both languages for the vocabulary terms. Additionally, the materials include a multilingual glossary that provides terms with visual and verbal examples in 11 different languages. Outside of the student task of reviewing work with their family on Enrichment Activities, there are no suggested home activities provided to parents regarding skill acquisition.

Evaluation for 6.5
The visual design of student and teacher materials (whether in print or digital) is neither distracting nor chaotic.

The visual design of student and teacher materials (whether in print or digital) is neither distracting nor chaotic. The materials include appropriate use of white space and design that supports and does not distract from student learning in both the digital platform and printable student companion sheets. The materials support student learning by providing graphics that are large and clear with sufficient white space, making it less distracting. Students can minimize graphics and text on the digital platform, giving them more room to work out problems. The teacher’s guides are designed with clear, designated places for important information such as aligned TEKS and pacing structures and include instructional support information that is clearly stated and easily identified on the pages and aids in planning and implementing lessons. The teachers’ guides are easily navigable, and important information is easy to find, particularly due to the consistency of “Lesson Teacher Guides,” “Topic Teacher Guides,” and “Unit Teacher Guides.” The “Program Overview Guide” thoroughly assists teachers in getting started with using the materials and understanding the purpose of each lesson piece. Moreover, the Teacher Guides are consistent and use the same format across the curriculum. Additionally, the materials include readable, relevant, and recognizable pictures, videos, and graphics that support student learning.

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials include appropriate use of white space and design that supports and does not distract from student learning in both the digital platform and printable student companion sheets. The teacher’s guides are designed with clear, designated places for important information such as aligned TEKS, pacing structures, essential questions, guided support for English Learners, and more. The teacher’s guides also include instructional support information clearly stated and easily identified on the pages and aids in planning and implementing lessons. For example, the Teacher’s Guides include sections such as “Author Intent,” “Fostering Student Engagement,” and “Close and Check” to clarify and ensure the demonstration of key concept understandings. The Program Overview thoroughly assists teachers in getting started with using the materials and understanding the purpose of each lesson piece. Moreover, the Teacher Guides are consistent and use the same format across the curriculum. For example, the Unit Teacher Guides provide topic outlines and pacing details for each topic, as well as essential questions; vocabulary; and background information regarding previous, current, and future learning encompassed in the unit. For example, individual Lesson Teacher Guides open with the “In-Class Notes,” which include guiding questions for each section of the lesson. This is followed by the “Preparation Notes” that include relevant lesson information listed under bolded headings such as Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and English Language Proficiency Standards.

The materials include readable, relevant, and recognizable pictures, videos, and graphics that support student learning. For example, the topic openers and launches include clear animations and videos, and each lesson piece has large, clear text and graphics, including the “Student Companions” that have easily identifiable pictures and graphics in some questions. For example, the digital math tools contain a simple graphic along with the text to help students identify the appropriate tool to use. The publisher uses clear, easy to read fonts. Pictures in the lesson and on assignments do not distract from the text on the page or interfere with learning, as there is no clutter and all associated pictures are clearly associated with their lesson part or practice problem. The tables and charts are also clear and easy to read.

Evaluation for 6.6
If present, technology or online components included are appropriate for grade level students and provide support for learning.

The entire program is digitally based. All student and teacher activities are designed to be delivered in a technology platform, yet users can print them if needed. With technology integration, data and reports are easily accessed, and assignments are quickly assigned to students. 

Evidence includes but is not limited to: 

The materials reviewed are technologically based with supplemental print material. Therefore, technology is not only present but is the foundation of the program. Thus, it aligns with the curriculum’s scope and approach to mathematics skill progression. The components include:

• Unit, topic, and lesson guides for teachers
• All assessments, both formative and summative, for students (prerequisite, unit, topic, etc.)
• Homework assignments
• Guided practice lessons
• Enrichment activities
• Tools (such as virtual manipulatives, graphic organizers, and a glossary) for instructional support
• Editable lesson plans for teachers

All of these components (and others not mentioned) support the materials’ progression of math content and skills introduction and practice.

The materials are designed for access on a digital platform and therefore, the entire curriculum and all activities are accessible through technology with the option of transitioning to paper-based if needed. The materials provide personalized digital lessons for students based on learning level and give feedback on progress while offering students the ability to complete school work from home if they have a computer/device with Internet access. The technological components of the materials align with the scope and sequence since the entire curriculum is designed to be accessed on a digital platform. Each lesson has specific guidance on how to utilize each digital piece of the lessons. Considering the materials are designed to be fully accessed digitally, the technological components support the materials’ progression of math content and skills introduction and practice through daily interactive lessons. For example, each lesson includes a “Launch” video and then two to four practice activities for completion as individuals or as a whole group. Students have the ability to digitally complete each lesson practice, homework, review work, and test/quiz.

The materials contain digital features to enhance classroom learning without replacing or detracting from it. The digital “Student Edition” of the math book is age-appropriate for sixth- to eighth-grade students. Students’ individual homepages have navigation buttons for digital copies of the student text, tutorial videos, and online skills practice. For example, the student edition contains a skills practice page where students may go to practice and receive feedback on converting between fractions, decimals, and percentages. The technology promotes and enhances student participation in materials through the use of engaging videos and activities. For example, each lesson contains videos and problem-solving tips by youthful individuals that are relatable to a diverse group of students. The technology of the lessons allows students to work through the entire lesson along with the teacher. Many lessons have drag and drop activities for students to help enhance student participation in the lesson.

The materials provide support for teachers to integrate technology successfully. The teacher guide has a sidebar within lessons that references available technologies to enhance the lesson. The materials contain a letter that supports families in working on the student edition outside of the classroom for extra support. Many of the topic introductions and practice problems have engaging videos and graphics to present scenarios. The program overview and teacher guides give teachers a thorough understanding of how to integrate the technological components in the lesson structure. For example, the program overview gives a high-level explanation of how to utilize teacher guides in the lessons and provides a table describing the various assessments and which assessments the online grading system can auto-grade. The teacher guides often direct teachers to utilize their whiteboard with the digital platform, along with how to incorporate student involvement in these activities. The materials include teacher training videos to assist teachers in understanding the technology of the curriculum, as well as information on how to contact Tech Support if an issue arises. For example, the training website features “On-Demand” training videos specific to the curriculum. Videos include training for the Program Overview, Unit Structure, and Teaching an On-Level Lesson. There are also links to videos for connecting with the Teaching Support panel and Support for Students.