Mathematics Course Syllabi

 

Secondary School Math Overview

     

      A balanced mathematics program at the secondary level includes the development of algebraic skills. This curriculum has been designed to equip students with the algebraic skills they need to understand other aspects of mathematics that they are learning, to solve meaningful problems, and to continue to meet with success as they study mathematics in the future. The algebraic skills required in each course have been carefully chosen to support the other topics included in the course. Calculators and other appropriate technology will be used when the primary purpose of a given activity is the development of concepts or the solving of problems, or when situations arise in which computation or symbolic manipulation is of secondary importance.

 

Grades 9 & 10

     

      The Grade 9 and 10 mathematics program builds on the elementary program, relying on the same fundamental principles on which that program was based. Both are founded on the premise that students learn mathematics most effectively when they have a thorough understanding of mathematical concepts and procedures, and when they build that understanding through an investigative approach, as reflected in the inquiry model of learning. This curriculum is designed to help students build a solid conceptual foundation in mathematics that will enable them to apply their knowledge and skills and further their learning successfully.

     

      Like the elementary curriculum, the secondary curriculum adopts a strong focus on the processes that best enable students to understand mathematical concepts and learn related skills. Attention to the mathematical processes is considered to be essential to a balanced mathematics program. The seven mathematical processes identified in this curriculum are problem solving, reasoning and proving, reflecting, selecting tools and computational strategies, connecting, representing, and communicating. Each of the Grade 9 and 10 mathematics courses includes a set of expectations – referred to in this document as the “mathematical process expectations” – that outline the knowledge and skills involved in these essential processes. The mathematical processes apply to student learning in all areas of a mathematics course.

 

Grade 11 & 12

     

      The senior mathematics courses build on the Grade 9 and 10 program, relying on the same fundamental principles on which that program was based. Both are founded on the premise that students learn mathematics most effectively when they build a thorough understanding of mathematical concepts and procedures. Such understanding is achieved when mathematical concepts and procedures are introduced through an investigative approach and connected to students’ prior knowledge in meaningful ways. This curriculum is designed to help students prepare for university, college, or the workplace by building a solid conceptual foundation in mathematics that will enable them to apply their knowledge and skills in a variety of ways and further their learning successfully.

     

      An important part of every course in the mathematics program is the process of inquiry, in which students develop methods for exploring new problems or unfamiliar situations. Knowing how to learn mathematics is the underlying expectation that every student in every course needs to achieve. An important part of the inquiry process is that of taking the conditions of a real-world situation and representing them in mathematical form. A mathematical representation can take many different forms – for example, it can be a physical model, a diagram, a graph, a table of values, an equation, or a computer simulation. It is important that students recognize various mathematical representations of given relationships and that they become familiar with increasingly sophisticated representations as they progress through secondary school.