The instructional materials for Grade 7 do not meet expectations for focus within assessment.

• These reviews only consider the student/teacher editions, and the STEM and art project books. Digital assessment materials are considered supplemental and not considered; therefore, there are limited summative assessments.

• In the student textbook, at the end of each lesson there are four questions that can be found in the student edition. These questions were not considered for this indicator because they were formative assessments. However, the STEM projects offer the opportunity for some assessment. In the STEM project books, students complete projects and based on a rubric, teachers can assess their students understanding. The STEM books incorporate both CCSSM and MP. For that reason, the STEM project books were used to compile evidence for indicator 1a.

• The Grade 7 textbook offers practice on the entire Grade 7 CCSSM; no topics from any other grades are included. However, the Grade 7 STEM project book pulls in topics from higher grades. If a student used the textbook as the main part of their math practice they would be unable to complete the projects listed below because they would not have had any exposure to those above grade-level topics.
  
  These include:
  
  Project 18, “The Beat Is On.” On page 260, it is listed that students are expected to submit 1) a data table, graph, and equation for a linear function, and 2) a data table, graph, and equation for a nonlinear function. This describes 8.F.B.4.
  
  Project 9, “What’s Shakin’?” On page 134, 7.EE.6 “Use numbers expressed in the form of a single digit times an integer power of 10 to estimate very large or very small quantities, and to express how many times as much one is than the other. For example, estimate the population of the United States as 3 times 10^8 and the population of the world as 7 times 10^9, and determine that the world population is more than 20 times larger.” is listed on this page, but the standard that is listed here is actually 8.EE.3.A. (There is no 7.EE.6.)
  
  Project 10, “Manufacturing Physical Properties of Materials.” The overview cites 7.G.7 states, ” Know the formulas for the volumes of cones, cylinders, and spheres and use them to solve real-world and mathematical problems.” This is an but actually references 8.G.C.9.
  
  Project 13, ”Living on the Edge; Fall Haul.” The overview mistakenly attributes 8.NS.A.2 as 7.NS.5 which states, ” Use rational approximations of irrational numbers to compare the size of irrational numbers, locate them approximately on a number line diagram, and estimate the value of expressions (e.g., π2). For example, by truncating the decimal expansion of √2, show that √2 is between 1 and 2, then between 1.4 and 1.5, and explain how to continue on to get better approximations.” This is an 8th grade standard 8.NS.A.2.
  

• In the overview, many of the standards are identified as Grade 7, when in fact they are actually Grade 6 or Grade 8. These include:
  
  Project 8, “ Shaping Our World.” On page xix of the overview, it cites 7.G.3.1, “Describe how two or more objects are related in space (e.g., skew lines, the possible ways three planes might intersect). There is no such CCSSM.
  
  Project 2, “Show me the numbers.” In the overview on page xix, 6.EE.B.8 is mistakenly referenced as 7.EE.8. There is no 7.EE.8. Also 6.EE.C.9 is mistakenly referred to as 7.EE.9. There is no 7.EE.9.
  
  Project 3, “What’s the best advantage?” In the overview on page xvii, 6.SP.B.5.B is mistakenly referred to as 7.SP.5.B
  
  
• Not all of the Grade 7 CCSSM are assessed in the STEM project books, and if the above listed projects are removed from use, then a large part of the topics covered in the textbook will never be assessed.

*Evidence updated 10/27/15

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 7 do not meet the expectations for time spent on the major work of the grade. Overall, the instructional material spends the majority of the time on the supporting and additional clusters of the grade.

• Textbook materials and STEM/Art projects dedicated to the major work of the grade account for 45% of the lessons. The major work of the grade is found in 28 days of the textbook and 27 days of the projects. This accounts for 55 days (45%) of the 124 total instructional days.
• The supporting work of the grade accounts for 10 days of instruction from the textbook and 15 days of instruction from the projects. This accounts for 20% of the instructional time.
• The additional work of the grade is covered in 13 days of instruction from the text and 31 days of instruction from the projects that account for 35% of the time.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 7 do not meet the expectations that materials are consistent with the progressions in the standards. Overall the materials do not develop according to the grade-by-grade progressions in the standards, content from prior or future grades is not clearly identified and not related to grade-level work. Materials do not offer students extensive work with grade-level problems and even though the materials do try to relate grade-level concepts explicitly to prior knowledge, this is limited to only prior knowledge from Grade 6.

• All Grade 7 standards are taught in the textbook with additional materials in the STEM book. The textbook spends an equivalent amount of time on each of the standards and little to no time is spent on topics from other grades. However, the STEM book incorporates standards from both Grade 6 and Grade 8. Though they may support the work of Grade 7 some of the Grade 6 standards are labeled as Grade 7 standards (see pages xvi-xvii).
• In the lesson plan for 7.G.A.1, the material provided in the teacher notes contains one reference to supporting students in reasoning about how lengths compare multiplicatively, as called for in the progression documents. In examining the student work pages however, there are no questions to elicit student understanding of how students reason with scaled drawings.
• The textbook progresses in the order that domains are listed rather than aligning with the CCSSM. The STEM projects focused on non-sequential standards in the projects so teachers have to ensure when assigning the projects that the standard has been addressed in the textbook first.
• The textbook lacked repetition of skills to help students become fluent. Teachers would need to find additional resources for extending the lesson.
• The Grade 7 materials lack extensive work in many areas. For example, 7.RP.A.3 is to "Use proportional relationships to solve multistep ratio and percent problems" with examples like simple interest, tax, markups and markdowns, gratuities and commissions, fees, percent increase and decrease, percent error. For each topic mentioned there are only two problems for practice. 7.NS.A.1.C is to "Understand subtraction of rational numbers as adding the additive inverse, p - q = p + (-q)". This is a very difficult topic for Grade 7 students to understand, yet the materials only spend one day on the topic. 7.G.B.4 is to "know the formulas for the area and circumference of a circle and use them to solve problems; give an informal derivation of the relationship between the circumference and area of a circle." The materials spend no time deriving any formulas for circle measures. In fact, the work on circles is mostly spent memorizing formulas and plugging numbers into those formulas.
• While there are opportunities for students to extend the work via the STEM book, the amount of work presented in the student text does not always treat the material to the fullest extent possible. The material in the student text does not have many places for students to practice.
• The materials offer a statement of what students should already know, and the introduction connects to prior knowledge. The connections are tied to the topics covered in the Grade 6 text.
• Every lesson is only about the grade level standard. The teacher edition asks to "remind student about..." but it does not specifically state that this example comes from an earlier grade or if it leads to a topic in a later grade.