7th Grade - Gateway 1
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Focus & Coherence
Gateway 1 - Meets Expectations | 92% |
|---|---|
Criterion 1.1: Focus | 2 / 2 |
Criterion 1.2: Coherence | 4 / 4 |
Criterion 1.3: Coherence | 7 / 8 |
The materials reviewed for Grade 7 meet the expectations for Gateway 1. These materials do not assess above-grade-level content and spend the majority of the time on the major clusters of each grade level. Teachers using these materials as designed will use supporting clusters to enhance the major work of the grade. Teachers using these materials as designed will use supporting clusters to enhance the major work of the grade. Although materials do not relate grade-level concepts explicitly to prior knowledge from earlier grades, the materials develop according to the grade-by-grade progressions in the Standards. Students are given extensive work on grade-level problems, and connections are made between clusters and domains where appropriate. Overall, the materials meet the expectations for focusing on the major work of the grade, and the materials also meet the expectations for coherence.
Criterion 1.1: Focus
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 7 meet the expectations for not assessing any topics before the grade-level in which the topic should be introduced. All of the summative assessment questions focus on grade-level topics or below. Overall, the instructional materials do not assess any content from future grades.
Indicator 1a
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 7 meet the expectations for assessing the grade-level content and, if applicable, content from earlier grades. The Sample Unit Quizzes and Tests included in the Teacher Resources Part 1 Section L and and Teacher Resources Part 2 Section V, along with the answer keys and "Scoring Guides and Rubrics," were reviewed for this indicator. Examples of Unit Tests that include great-level assessment items include the following:
- In Teacher Resources Part 1, the Unit 6 Test that addresses standards from 7.G.A has students construct triangles from given angle measurements or side lengths and solve problems involving scale drawings of geometric figures.
- In Teacher Resources Part 2, the Unit 2 Test that addresses standards from 7.NS.2 has students converting rational numbers to a decimal using long division and showing that the decimal form of a rational number terminates in 0s or eventually repeats.
Criterion 1.2: Coherence
Students and teachers using the materials as designed devote the large majority of class time in each grade K-8 to the major work of the grade.
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 7 meet the expectations for, when used as designed, devoting the majority of class time in each grade to the major work of the grade. The amount of time spent on major work is approximately 73 percent. Overall, the instructional material spends the majority of class time on the major clusters of the grade.
Indicator 1b
Instructional material spends the majority of class time on the major cluster of each grade.
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 7 meet the expectations for spending the majority of class time on the major clusters of each grade. Overall, approximately 73 percent of class time is devoted to major work of the grade.
The materials for Grade 7 include 15 Units. In the materials, there are 168 lessons, and of those, 29 are Bridging lessons. According to the materials, Bridging lessons should not be “counted as part of the work of the year” (page A-56), so the number of lessons examined for this indicator is 139 lessons. The supporting clusters were also reviewed to determine if they could be factored in due to how strongly they support major work of the grade. There were connections found between supporting clusters and major clusters, and due to the strength of the connections found, the number of lessons addressing major work was increased from the approximately 96 lessons addressing major work as indicated by the materials themselves to 102 lessons.
Three perspectives were considered: 1) the number of units devoted to major work, 2) the number of lessons devoted to major work, and 3) the number of instructional days devoted to major work including days for unit assessments.
The percentages for each of the three perspectives follow:
- Units– Approximately 67 percent, 10 out of 15;
- Lessons– Approximately 73 percent, 102 out of 139; and
- Days– Approximately 73 percent, 112 out of 154.
The number of instructional days, approximately 73 percent, devoted to major work is the most reflective for this indicator because it represents the total amount of class time that addresses major work.
Criterion 1.3: Coherence
Coherence: Each grade's instructional materials are coherent and consistent with the Standards.
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 7 meet the expectations for coherence. The materials use supporting content as a way to continue working with the major work of the grade and include a full program of study that is viable content for a school year including 154 days of lessons and assessment. Students are given extensive work on grade-level problems. Materials develop according to the grade-by-grade progressions in the Standards, but materials do not relate grade-level concepts explicitly to prior knowledge from earlier grades. These instructional materials are visibly shaped by the cluster headings in the standards, and connections are made between domains and clusters within the grade level. Overall, the Grade 7 materials support coherence and are consistent with the progressions in the standards.
Indicator 1c
Supporting content enhances focus and coherence simultaneously by engaging students in the major work of the grade.
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 7 meet the expectations that supporting content enhances focus and coherence simultaneously by engaging students in the major work of the grade. When appropriate, the supporting work enhances and supports the major work of the grade-level.
Examples where connections are present include the following:
- In Lessons 8, 9, and 10 of Unit 6 in Teacher Resources Part 1, the materials connect 7.RP.2 with 7.G.1 as students are expected to recognize and represent proportional relationships between quantities in order to solve problems involving scale drawings of geometric figures.
- In Lessons 11, 12, and 13 of Unit 4 in Teacher Resources Part 2, the materials connect 7.EE.4a with 7.G.5 as students are expected to solve word problems leading to equations of the form px + q = r and p(x + q) = r, where p, q, and r are specific rational numbers, that arise from using facts about supplementary, complementary, vertical, and adjacent angles in a figure.
- In Lessons 14, 15, and 16 of Unit 4 in Teacher Resources Part 2, the materials connect 7.EE.4 with 7.G.6 as students are expected to construct simple equations and inequalities to solve problems by reasoning about the quantities that arise from real-world and mathematical problems involving area of two-dimensional objects composed of triangles, quadrilaterals, and polygons.
- In Lesson 16 of Unit 7 in Teacher Resources Part 2, the materials connect 7.RP.2 with 7.SP.2 as students are expected to recognize and represent proportional relationships between quantities in order to draw inferences about a population with an unknown characteristic of interest.
Indicator 1d
The amount of content designated for one grade level is viable for one school year in order to foster coherence between grades.
The instructional materials reviewed meet the expectations for having an amount of content designated for one grade-level that is viable for one school year in order to foster coherence between grades. Overall, the amount of time needed to complete the lessons is approximately 154 days which is appropriate for a school year of approximately 140-190 days.
- The materials are written with 15 units containing a total of 168 lessons.
- Each lesson is designed to be implemented during the course of one 45 minute class period per day. In the materials, there are 168 lessons, and of those, 29 are Bridging lessons. Twenty-nine Bridging lessons have been removed from the count because the Teacher's Edition states that they are not counted as part of the work for the year, so the number of lessons examined for this indicator is 139 lessons.
- There are 15 unit tests which are counted as 15 extra days of instruction.
- There is a short quiz every 3-5 lessons. Materials expect these quizzes to take no more than 10 minutes, so they are not counted as extra days of instruction.
Indicator 1e
Materials are consistent with the progressions in the Standards i. Materials develop according to the grade-by-grade progressions in the Standards. If there is content from prior or future grades, that content is clearly identified and related to grade-level work ii. Materials give all students extensive work with grade-level problems iii. Materials relate grade level concepts explicitly to prior knowledge from earlier grades.
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 7 partially meet the expectation for being consistent with the progressions in the Standards. Overall, the materials address the standards for this grade-level and provide all students with extensive work on grade-level problems. The materials make connections to content in future grades, but they do not explicitly relate grade-level concepts to prior knowledge from earlier grades.
The materials develop according to the grade-by-grade progressions in the Standards, and content from prior or future grades is clearly identified and related to grade-level work. The Teacher Resources contain sections that highlight the development of the grade-by-grade progressions in the materials, identify content from prior or future grades, and state the relationship to grade-level work.
- At the beginning of each unit, "This Unit in Context" provides a description of prior concepts and standards students have encountered during the grade-levels before this one. The end of this section also makes connections to concepts that will occur in future grade-levels. For example, "This Unit in Context" from Unit 8, Statistics and Probability: Probability Models, of Teacher Resources Part 1 describes the topics from Measurement and Data that students encountered in Grades K through 5, specifically organizing and representing data with scaled picture and bar graphs and line plots with measurements in fractions of a unit, and from Statistics and Probability in Grade 6, specifically developing an understanding of statistical variability and summarizing and describing distributions. The description then includes the topic of probability, specifically referring to using different tools to find probabilities, and it concludes with how the work of this unit builds to the statistical topic of bivariate data in Grade 8.
There are some lesson that are not labeled Bridging Lessons that contain off grade-level material, but these lessons are labeled as “preparation for” and can be connected to grade-level work. For example, Lesson 33 of Unit 2 in Teacher Resources Part 2 addresses solving addition and multiplication equations including negative addends and coefficients, and the lesson is labeled as "preparation for 7.EE.4."
The materials give all students extensive work with grade-level problems. The lessons also include "Extensions," and the problems in these sections are on grade-level.
- Whole class instruction is used in the lessons, and all students are expected to do the same work throughout the lesson. Individual, small-group, or whole-class instruction occurs in the lessons.
- The problems in the Assessment & Practice books align to the content of the lessons, and they provide on grade-level problems that "were designed to help students develop confidence, fluency, and practice." (page A-54, Teacher Resources)
- In the Advanced Lessons, students get the opportunity to engage with more difficult problems, but the problems are still aligned to grade-level standards. For example, the problems in Lesson 27 of Unit 3 in Teacher Resources Part 2 engage students in solving inequalities where the coefficient of the variable is negative, which is more difficult than when the coefficient is positive, but these problems still align to 7.EE.4b. Also, the problems in Lesson 52 of Unit 5 in Teacher Resources Part 2 that have students simplifying numerical expressions that include repeating decimals align to standards from 7.NS.
The instructional materials do not relate grade-level concepts explicitly to prior knowledge from earlier grades. Examples of missing explicit connections include:
- Every lesson identifies “Prior Knowledge Required” even though the prior knowledge identified is not aligned to any grade-level standards. For example, Lesson 28 of Unit 2 in Teacher Resources Part 2 states that its goal is to solve problems involving ratios with fractional terms, and the prior knowledge required is that students can divide fractions, can multiply fractions by whole numbers, can multiply whole numbers by fractions, can find equivalent ratios, and can understands ratio tables.
- There are 29 lessons identified as Bridging Lessons, but none of these lessons are explicitly aligned to standards from prior grades even though they do state for which grade-level standards they are preparation. For example, in Unit 4 of Teacher Resources Part 1, four of the seven lessons are Bridging Lessons labeled as "preparation for 7.NS.1," and two of the seven are Bridging Lessons labeled as "preparation for 7.NS.2." However, none of these six Bridging Lessons are explicitly aligned to standards prior to Grade 7. Also, Lesson 1 of Unit 3 in Teacher Resources Part 2 is a Bridging Lesson labeled as "preparation for 7.EE.4" that has students substituting values for a variable into an expression, but the lesson is not explicitly aligned to standards prior to Grade 7.
Indicator 1f
Materials foster coherence through connections at a single grade, where appropriate and required by the Standards i. Materials include learning objectives that are visibly shaped by CCSSM cluster headings. ii. Materials include problems and activities that serve to connect two or more clusters in a domain, or two or more domains in a grade, in cases where these connections are natural and important.
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 7 meet the expectations for fostering coherence through connections at a single grade, where appropriate and required by the standards. Overall, materials include learning objectives that are visibly shaped by CCSSM cluster headings and make connections within and across domains.
In the materials, the units are organized by domains and are clearly labeled. For example, Teacher Resources Part 1 Unit 3 is titled Expressions and Equations: Equivalent Expressions, and Teacher Resources Part 2 Unit 6 is titled Geometry: Volume, Surface Area, and Cross Sections. Within the units, there are goals for each lesson, and the language of the goals is visibly shaped by the CCSSM cluster headings. For example, in Unit 8 of Teacher Resources Part 1, the goal for Lesson 9 states "Students will design and use a simulation to determine probabilities of compound events." The language of this goal is visibly shaped by 7.SP.C, "Investigate chance processes and develop, use, and evaluate probability models."
The instructional materials include problems and activities that serve to connect two or more clusters in a domain or two or more domains in a grade. Examples of these connections include the following:
- In Lessons 22 and 23 of Unit 4 in Teacher Resources Part 2, the materials connect 7.G.A with 7.G.B as students draw, construct, and describe geometrical figures; describe the relationships between them; and solve problems involving angle measure and area.
- In Lesson 13 of Unit 7 in Teacher Resources Part 2, the materials connect 7.SP.A with 7.SP.B as students use random sampling to draw inferences about a population and informal comparative inferences about two populations.
- In Lesson 19 of Unit 3 in Teacher Resources Part 2, the materials connect 7.RP with 7.EE as students are expected to recognize and represent proportional relationships between quantities and rewrite expressions in different forms in a problem context to shed light on the problem and how the quantities in it are related.
- In Lesson 18 of Unit 4 in Teacher Resources Part 2, the materials connect 7.RP with 7.G.A as students compute areas from scale drawings.