Teacher(s):

Course Description:

This course enables students to consolidate, and continue to develop, an understanding of mathematical concepts related to number sense and operations, algebra, measurement, geometry, data, probability, and financial literacy. Students will use mathematical processes, mathematical modelling, and coding to make sense of the mathematics they are learning and to apply their understanding to culturally responsive and relevant real-world situations. Students will continue to enhance their mathematical reasoning skills, including proportional reasoning, spatial reasoning, and algebraic reasoning, as they solve problems and communicate their thinking.

Resources Required:

This course is entirely online and does not require nor rely on any textbook. The materials required for the course are:

• A scanner, smart phone camera, or similar device to digitize handwritten or hand-drawn work,
• A non-programmable, non-graphing, scientific calculator.
• Spreadsheet software
• Word processing software
• Graphing software

Teaching and Learning Strategies:

The overriding aim of this course is to help students use the language of mathematics skillfully, confidently, and flexibly. A wide variety of instructional strategies are used to provide learning opportunities to accommodate a variety of learning styles, interests, and ability levels. The following mathematical processes are used throughout the course as strategies for teaching and learning the concepts presented:

• Problem solving: This course scaffolds learning by providing students with opportunities to review and activate prior knowledge, and build off of this knowledge to acquire new skills. The course guides students toward recognizing opportunities to apply knowledge they have gained to solve real-world mathematics problems relating to careers that require mathematics.
• Activating: This course scaffolds learning by providing students with opportunities to review and activate prior knowledge, and build off of this knowledge to acquire new skills. The course guides students toward recognizing opportunities to apply knowledge they have gained to solve real-world mathematics problems relating to careers that require mathematics.
• Connecting: The course activates prior knowledge when introducing a new concept in order to make a smooth connection between previous learning and new concepts, and introducing skills in context to make connections between particular manipulations and problems that require them.
• Representing: Through the use of examples, practice problems, and solution videos, the course models various ways to demonstrate understanding, poses questions that require students to use different representations as they are working at each level of conceptual development – concrete, visual or symbolic, and allows individual students the time they need to solidify their understanding at each conceptual stage.
• Selecting Tools and Computational Strategies: This course models the use of graphing software to help solve problems and to familiarize students with technologies that can help make solving problems faster and more accurate. Students will also investigate software used in a career that they are interested in, and describe how it relates to mathematics.
• Connecting: This course connects the concepts taught to real-world applications (e.g. concepts taught in geometry are related to careers in manufacturing). Students will have opportunities to connect previous concepts to new concepts through posed problems, investigations, and enrichment activities.
• Self-Assessment: Through the use of interactive activities (e.g. multiple choice quizzes, and drag-and-drop activities) students receive instantaneous feedback and are able to self-assess their understanding of concepts.

Assessment and Evaluation Strategies of Student Performance:

Every student attending Christian Virtual School is unique. We believe each student must have the opportunities to achieve success according to their own interests, abilities, and goals. Like the Ministry of Education, we have defined high expectations and standards for graduation, while introducing a range of options that allow students to learn in ways that suit them best and enable them to earn their diplomas. Christian Virtual School’s Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting Policy is based on seven fundamental principles, as outlined in the Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario Schools document.

When these seven principles are fully understood and observed by all teachers, they guide the collection of meaningful information that helps inform instructional decisions, promote student engagement, and improve student learning. At Christian Virtual School, teachers use practices and procedures that:

1. are fair, transparent, and equitable for all students;
2. support all students, including those with special education needs, those who are learning English, and those who are First Nation, Métis, or Inuit;
3. are carefully planned to relate to the curriculum expectations and learning goals and, as much as possible, to the interests, learning styles and preferences, needs, and experiences of all students;
4. are communicated clearly to students and parents or guardians at the beginning of the school year or course and at other appropriate points throughout the school year or course;
5. are ongoing, varied in nature, and administered over a period of time to provide multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate the full range of their learning;
6. provide ongoing descriptive feedback that is clear, specific, meaningful, and timely to support improved learning and achievement; and
7. develop students’ self-assessment skills to enable them to access their own learning, set specific goals, and plan next steps for their learning.

For more information on our assessment and evaluation strategies, refer to Section 6, Student Achievement, in the Course Calendar.

Program Planning Considerations: