This task was developed by high school and postsecondary mathematics and design/pre-construction educators, and validated by content experts in the Common Core State Standards in mathematics and the National Career Clusters Knowledge & Skills Statements. It was developed with the purpose of demonstrating how the Common Core and CTE Knowledge & Skills Statements can be integrated into classroom learning - and to provide classroom teachers with a truly authentic task for either mathematics or CTE courses.

The CUNY HSE Curriculum Framework provides direction, structure and materials for teaching math, science and social studies (integrated with reading and writing) in the new era of HSE instruction. The complete framework is available for free download.

The framework was written by the CUNY Adult Literacy PD Team to respond to the challenges facing high school equivalency (HSE) teachers and their students. It is a guide for planning your instruction – including topic recommendations, model lessons, guiding questions, readings, and problems. The framework prioritizes depth over breadth. It does not address all of the content that might potentially be included on an HSE exam, but instead models a focused and coherent study of high priority topics within each content area.

As teachers in adult literacy and HSE education, our work has always been demanding. Now that our students face a new and more challenging HSE test, the demands on teachers are even greater. Teaching students to read, write and do math at the HSE level is no longer enough. Students need specific, deep and coherent content knowledge, as well as the capacity to apply this content knowledge to analysis and problem solving.

As the demands on our students and teachers are increasing, it is important that we don’t lose sight of one of our greatest strengths — our practice of starting from where students are and our serious respect for their learning processes. As a student of ours once said, “You can’t make a plant grow by pulling on it, you only make it rootless.”

The Social Studies section integrates reading and writing through a focus on U.S. history, with extensions to civics, economics and geography. This section has a curriculum map, 12 unit descriptions, six model lesson plans and additional resources.

The Science section provides an introduction to matter and basic chemistry with extensions to science/math connections. This section includes a curriculum map with 23 topic descriptions and key questions, and three complete inquiry-based model lesson plans.

The Math section focuses on problem-solving in functions and algebra. It integrates problem-solving strategies, productive struggle, perseverance and mathematical discussion into content learning. This section includes a curriculum map, model lessons, rich engaging math problems, samples of student work, powerful routines for math classrooms, classroom videos, and more.

A lab where students determine the molarity of sugar and citric acid in samples of lemonade.

Students will discover the terminal velocity to mass relationship and use this information to calculate the air resistance constant. They will evaluate the accuracy of their lab using the Monte Carlo method.

This activity is a project-based inquiry where students design and create a machine to complete a task. Then students will be asked to calculate velocities, kinetic energy and potential energies of various parts of their machine.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach third graders about place value problems involving grouping of items.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about using greater than and less than.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about calculating total weight from scales (metric units).

This lesson unit is intended to help teahcers assess how well students solve problems involving measurement, and in particular, to identify and help students who have the following difficulties; computing measurements using formulas; decomposing compound shapes into simpler ones; using right triangles and their properties to solve real-world problems.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach third graders about calculating and comparing capacities with illustrations (metric units).

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to give fourth graders an overview of capacity (metric units).

This activity enables students to calculate the speed of sound in a laboratory setting.

This course begins with a review of algebra specifically designed to help and prepare the student for the study of calculus, and continues with discussion of functions, graphs, limits, continuity, and derivatives. The appendix provides a large collection of reference facts, geometry, and trigonometry that will assist in solving calculus problems long after the course is over. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: calculate or estimate limits of functions given by formulas, graphs, or tables by using properties of limits and LĺÎĺ_ĺĚĺ_hopitalĺÎĺ_ĺĚĺ_s Rule; state whether a function given by a graph or formula is continuous or differentiable at a given point or on a given interval and justify the answer; calculate average and instantaneous rates of change in context, and state the meaning and units of the derivative for functions given graphically; calculate derivatives of polynomial, rational, common transcendental functions, and implicitly defined functions; apply the ideas and techniques of derivatives to solve maximum and minimum problems and related rate problems, and calculate slopes and rates for function given as parametric equations; find extreme values of modeling functions given by formulas or graphs; predict, construct, and interpret the shapes of graphs; solve equations using NewtonĺÎĺ_ĺĚĺ_s Method; find linear approximations to functions using differentials; festate in words the meanings of the solutions to applied problems, attaching the appropriate units to an answer; state which parts of a mathematical statement are assumptions, such as hypotheses, and which parts are conclusions. This free course may be completed online at any time. It has been developed through a partnership with the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges; the Saylor Foundation has modified some WSBCTC materials. (Mathematics 005)

This activity is a chance for students to apply the diffraction grating equation m*Λ/d = Θ to solve a real life problem: find the wavelength of given source of light. It is also useful for them to apply trigonometry to real life scenarios.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach second graders about capacity comparison problems with illustrations - word problems.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach third graders an overview of capacity IIi (metric units).

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about finding the amount of water with illustrations and calculations (metric units).

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach second graders about capacity problems with illustrations - word problems.

The goal of this activity is for both me and the students to learn how well prepared they are for the mid term. In Wednesday's class I tell them we will be doing an assessment on Friday. For Friday I prepare a series of questions that cover the likely content of the mid term and print them out in large print, attaching them to self adhesive poster paper. I paste these up around the classroom and randomly break the class into teams of 3-5. Each team works on "their" question for ~8 minutes, answering the questions on the poster paper and adding what they are puzzled about. The each team moves to the next question/poster and works 3-5 minutes on it, absorbing what has been written and adding their own ideas and questions. The carousel continues to rotate every ~5 minutes until the teams arrive back at their original poster. Each team reads what has been written and prepares a summary. At this point the teams clarify items they do not understand. Monday's assignment for each team is to come to class with a better hand drawn poster and report to the class, answering some of the unanswered questions from Friday.