About This Report
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Report Overview
Summary of Alignment & Usability: Math Expressions | Math
Product Notes
Review materials included the teacher and student editions.
Math K-2
The instructional materials reviewed for Kindergarten--Grade 2 do not meet the expectations for alignment and were not reviewed for usability. All grades in this grade band spend the majority of the time on the major work of the grade and align assessments to the standards. These grades also attend to the coherence in the standards. The materials use supporting content as a way to continue work with the major work of the grade. The materials include a full program of study that is viable content for a school year including 150 lesson and assessment days. This set of materials is consistent with the mathematical progression of learning set forth in the standards. All students are given extensive work on grade level problems and this work progresses mathematically. These instructional materials are visibly shaped by the cluster headings in the standards. Connections are made between domains and clusters within the grade level. Kindergarten, Grade 1 and Grade 2 were reviewed for Gateway 2, partially meeting the requirements for the aspects of rigor and the instructional use of the SMP. Overall the K-2 materials do not meet the requirements for alignment and, therefore, were not reviewed for usability.
Kindergarten
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
1st Grade
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
2nd Grade
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
Math 3-5
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 3-Grade 5 do not meet the expectations for alignment and usability. All grades spend the majority of the time on major work of the grade but all grades include assessment items that are above grade level standards. The materials in Grade 4 and Grade 5 provide coherence, but the Grade 3 materials do not attend well to the learning progression in fractions, spending much more time on multiplication and division. The materials include a full program of study that is viable content for a school year including 150 days of lessons and assessments. These instructional materials are visibly shaped by the cluster headings in the standards. Connections are made between domains and clusters within the grade level. Overall the Grade 3-Grade 5 band materials do not meet the requirements for alignment and, therefore, were not reviewed for usability.
3rd Grade
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
4th Grade
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
5th Grade
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
Report for 2nd Grade
Alignment Summary
The materials reviewed for Grade 2 are partially aligned to the CCSSM. The materials are focused within assessments and spend the majority of time on the major work of the grade. The materials are also coherent, following the progression of the standards and connecting the mathematics within the grade level. The Grade 2 materials include all three aspects of rigor but procedure is emphasized over conceptual understanding. The MPs are identified and generally used to enhance the mathematical content, but the materials do not attend to the full meaning of each MP nor do they fully support the teacher and students in mathematical reasoning. Overall, the materials are only partially aligned to the CCSSM.
2nd Grade
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Usability (Gateway 3)
Overview of Gateway 1
Focus & Coherence
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the expectation for Gateway 1: Focus and Coherence. Materials do not assess any topics before the grade level in which the topic is introduced in the standards and spend the majority of time on major work. No above grade level content was assessed on summative unit assessments. All assessments relate to Grade 2 standards. For instance, students are assessed on their understanding of place value, their fluency with addition and subtraction to 20 and their ability to compare two three-digit numbers. The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the expectations for focus by spending the majority of the time on the major clusters of the grade. This includes the first two clusters of 2.OA, all of 2.NBT and the first two clusters of 2.MD. The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 2 also meet the expectation for coherence. The materials use supporting content as a way to continue work with the major work of the grade. For example, money is often used to support work in addition, subtraction and place value. The materials include a full program of study that is viable content for a school year including 150 lesson and assessment days. This set of materials is consistent with the mathematical progression of learning set forth in the standards. All students, including struggling students, are given extensive work on grade level problems and this work progresses mathematically. These instructional materials are visibly shaped by the cluster headings in the standards. Connections are made between domains and clusters within the grade level. For instance, materials make connections between place value and money and telling time and foundations for multiplication. Overall, the Grade 2 materials support focus and coherence and meet the requirements for Gateway 1.
Gateway 1
v1.0
Criterion 1.1: Focus
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the expectation for this criterion by not assessing any topics before the grade level in which the topic is introduced in the standards. No above grade level content was assessed on summative unit assessments. All assessments relate to Grade 2 standards. For instance, students are assessed on their understanding of place value, their fluency with addition and subtraction to 20 and their ability to compare two three-digit numbers. Overall, the instructional materials meet the expectations for focus within assessment.
Indicator 1A
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the expectations for focus within assessment. Overall, the instructional material does not assess any content from future grades within the summative assessment sections of each unit.
- No above grade level content was assessed on summative unit assessments.
- All assessments, rubrics and topics relate to Grade 2 standards or below.
- Students are assessed on adding and subtracting within 20, 100 and 1000.
- Students are assessed on their understanding of place value.
- Students are assessed on measurement, telling time and money as indicated by the standards.
Criterion 1.2: Coherence
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the expectations for focus by spending the majority of the time on the major clusters of the grade. This includes the first two clusters of 2.OA, all of 2.NBT and the first two clusters of 2.MD.
Indicator 1B
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the expectations for focus by spending the majority of the time on the major clusters of the grade. This includes the first two clusters of 2.OA, all of 2.NBT and the first two clusters of 2.MD.
- While some lessons include multiple standards, approximately 94 out of 113 lessons are devoted to major work.
- Units 1, 2 and 6 focus exclusively on major work.
- Units 3, 4 and 5 focus the majority of the lessons on major work.
- Unit 7 spends less than 50% of the time on major work.
- More than 80% of the lessons focus on the major work of the grade level.
Criterion 1.3: Coherence
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the expectations for coherence. The materials use supporting content as a way to continue work with the major work of the grade. For example, money is often used to support work in addition, subtraction and place value. The materials include a full program of study that is viable content for a school year including 150 lesson and assessment days. This set of materials is consistent with the mathematical progression of learning set forth in the standards. All students, including struggling students, are given extensive work on grade level problems and this work progresses mathematically. These instructional materials are visibly shaped by the cluster headings in the standards. Connections are made between domains and clusters within the grade level. For instance, materials make connections between place value and money, telling time and foundations for multiplication. Overall, the Grade 2 materials support coherence and are consistent with the progressions in the standards.
Indicator 1C
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the expectations for their use of supporting content as a way to enhance coherence. For Grade 2, reviewers focused on the use of data and money as methods for supporting addition and subtraction and place value.
- Units 2 and 4 use money (2.MD.C.8) to continue work on addition, subtraction and place value.
- Units 3 and 5 use data to continue work on addition and subtraction and to compare quantities.
- Connections are also made with counting by 5s, telling time and using length as a connection to addition and subtraction.
Indicator 1D
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the expectation for this indicator by providing a viable level of content for one school year.
- Materials provide for 150 days of instruction, quizzes, fluency checks and formal assessment.
- Most lessons are appropriate in length for Grade 2.
- Some lessons may take longer than indicated.
Indicator 1E
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 2 are consistent with the mathematical progressions in the standards and meet the expectation for this indicator.
- Materials develop according to the progressions laid out in the standards.
- Students work on strategies for addition and subtraction and fluency.
- There is a progression of difficulty of the problem types throughout the materials.
- Differentiation materials offer support to struggling students while maintaining a focus on grade level content.
- There are no connections to content from prior grades explicitly made for students.
- Minimal connections are made for the teacher within the lessons to prior knowledge from previous grades. One example is the learning progression chart included in each unit that shows connections to previous and future grades.
Indicator 1F
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 2 foster coherence through grade level connections.
- Lesson and test objectives are visibly shaped by the cluster headings in the CCSSM.
- Connections are made between place value and money.
- Lengths are used to continue work on addition and subtraction.
- Telling time and money are connected to work that builds the foundation for multiplication.
Overview of Gateway 2
Rigor & Mathematical Practices
The materials reviewed for Grade 2 partially meet the requirements for Gateway 2. All three aspects of rigor are present in the materials, but they are not balanced. There is a prevalence of procedural lessons, problems and assessment items. There are few conceptual understanding lessons, problems or assessment items. The MPs are listed in the specifics of the lessons and the way they are listed enhances the learning. Attention is not paid to the full meaning of each MP and one lesson in each unit focuses on MPs separately from content standards. The materials are not strong in their expectation for mathematical reasoning. The students and teachers are not given enough support nor is the vocabulary development sufficient. The materials reviewed for Gateway 2 do not align with the expectations for rigor and mathematical practices.
Gateway 2
v1.0
Criterion 2.1: Rigor
The materials reviewed for Grade 2 partially meet the requirements for this criterion. All three aspects of rigor are present in the materials, but they are not balanced. There is a prevalence of procedural lessons, problems and assessment items. There are few conceptual understanding lessons, problems and assessment items. The balance of rigor in the standards is not present in the materials for Grade 2.
Indicator 2A
The materials reviewed in Grade 2 for this indicator partially meet the requirements of attending to conceptual understanding within the lessons.
- In unit 2 students use place value "secret code" cards and layered place value cards and are expected to write expanded form. Throughout the rest of the lessons there is a lack of emphasis on place value strategies.
- Place value work is often procedural and building conceptual understanding of place value is not prevalent.
- The "Formative Assessment: Check Understanding" boxes attend to conceptual understanding. These could be used for classroom discussions instead of individual assessment checks.
Indicator 2B
The materials reviewed in Grade 2 for this indicator meet the requirements by attending to fluency and procedural work within the lessons. In Grade 2 this includes adding and subtracting single digit sums from memory (2.OA.B.2) and fluently adding and subtracting within 100 using strategies (2.NBT.B.5).
Lessons include quick practice for fluency.
Lessons include targeted practice in fluency.
● Student workbook includes opportunities to practice fluency.
Indicator 2C
The materials reviewed in Grade 2 for this indicator meet the requirements by attending to application within the lessons.
- Each unit ends with a real-world problem to solve.
- Word problems are interspersed throughout the lessons in all units.
- Students are given opportunities to generate their own word problems.
- In unit 6, students are working with mixed operation problems.
- By unit 7, students are working with 2-step problems.
- Multiple problem types are attended to and described for the teacher.
Indicator 2D
The materials reviewed in Grade 2 for this indicator partially meet the requirements of providing a balance of rigor. The three aspects are not always treated together nor are they always treated separately.
- While all three aspects of rigor are included, there is a heavy emphasis on procedures and a lack of emphasis on conceptual understanding.
- Within the assessments there are more procedural questions and very few conceptual or application problems.
Criterion 2.2: Math Practices
The materials reviewed for Grade 2 partially meet the requirements of this criterion. The MPs are listed in the specifics of the lessons, and the way they are listed enhances the learning. Attention is not paid to the full meaning of each MP and one lesson in each unit focuses only on the practices and not the content standards. The materials are not strong in their expectation for mathematical reasoning. The students and teachers are not given enough support nor is the vocabulary development sufficient.
Indicator 2E
The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the requirement of this indicator by identifying the Standards for Mathematical Practice (MPs) and using this identification to enhance the learning.
- MPs are identified in the "Getting Ready to Teach" sections in every unit.
- MPs are identified within the lessons in a way that supports the learning.
- For example, in unit 6 MP6 is identified as students are asked to explain 3-digit subtraction using place value words. This is a way to use vocabulary to enhance the learning.
Indicator 2F
The materials reviewed for Grade 2 partially meet the requirement of this indicator.
- MP1 is consistently expected as students solve problems throughout the year.
- The full meaning of MP5 is not attended to. Students rarely choose their own mathematical tools.
- The final lesson in each unit focuses on all 8 MPs instead of focusing on content standards. These lessons do not attend to the full meaning of all 8 MPs.
Indicator 2G
Indicator 2G.i
The materials reviewed for Grade 2 partially meet the requirement of this indicator of attending to the standards' emphasis on mathematical reasoning.
- Students are rarely prompted to construct viable arguments. One example is found on the assessment for unit 6 where students are prompted to "Explain how and why you can use addition to check your answer."
- In the differentiation cards students are occasionally prompted to discuss their strategies with the group.
- Most of the student pages include numbers, symbols and spaces for answers, but they do not include spaces for students to explain their thinking or opportunities to share these explanations.
- Students are asked to analyze a response from the "Puzzled Penguin," but this is simply an opportunity for catching errors and not an opportunity for reasoning.
Indicator 2G.ii
The materials reviewed for Grade 2 partially meet the requirement of this indicator of attending to the Standards' emphasis on mathematical reasoning.
- In unit 6 teachers are given an activity called "Discuss Good Explanations." This provides students with the opportunity to construct their own arguments and help other students to make a full explanation.
- The teacher's manual provides questions to promote MP3.
- In several lessons, an element called "Math Talk in Action" is a way to promote to high quality classroom discussions.
- Teacher questions often simply ask for the answer and not the reasoning nor the opportunity to analyze arguments of other students.
Indicator 2G.iii
The materials reviewed for Grade 2 partially meet the requirement of this indicator of attending to the standards' emphasis on mathematical reasoning.
- There are vocabulary terms listed for most lessons, however this often includes strategies specific to the curriculum instead of mathematical language. For example, the phrase "hidden information" is listed as a vocabulary word in unit 1. In unit 6, the phrases "New Groups Above" and "New Groups Below" are listed as vocabulary.