Q: What is the fastest way to get a heated debate going about some topic in the IM 6-8 math curriculum?

A: Show people this graph from Lesson 4 in Unit 8.5:

I asked my 15-year-old what she learned today at school. She paused for a moment and then answered,  “What did you learn at school today?”

It took me a while to think about what I had learned (which will make me more patient when I ask her again tomorrow), and then I remembered and shared with her:We are working with some teachers who are using the Illustrative Mathematics 6–8 Math curriculum. The 7th grade teachers are in Unit 1, Scale Drawings. They are working with scale drawings and maps. Today I learned to look more closely at the scale given for a map.

By William McCallum

Somewhere back in days of Facebook fury about the Common Core there was a post from an outraged parent whose child had been marked wrong for something like this:
$$6 \times 3 = 6 + 6 + 6 = 18.$$
Apparently the child was supposed to do
$$6 \times 3 = 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 +3 = 18$$
because of this standard: Continue reading “Ways of thinking and ways of doing”