Conceptua Math today announced the rollout of a comprehensive digital mathematics curriculum for grades 3-5. Sunnyside Unified School District in Tucson, Ariz.; Henry County Schools in McDonough, Ga.; and Grandview School District in Grandview, Wash. are the first three districts to adopt this new program. Conceptua will launch grades 3-5 curriculum units in a staged release over the next two school years.
The Sunnyside Unified School District, which serves 18,000 students of low socioeconomic status primarily from the Latino community, selected Conceptua Math as its core curriculum solution for grades 3-5 based upon results attained with Conceptua Fractions over the 2012-2013 school year. During that time, student understanding of fractions nearly doubled, with an overall increase in comprehension of 36 percent in the fourth and fifth grades. Because of this success, Steve Holmes, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction at Sunnyside, describes Conceptua Math as a core component of their future mathematics curriculum. “We have assessed many online math programs. We see Conceptua as the best fit for our Common Core rollout, and we believe that Conceptua Math represents the best-of-breed for 1:1 digital curricula.”
Henry County Schools, with a diverse population of 40,000 students, participated in a year-long Conceptua Math pilot that emphasized visual and conceptual modeling, along with rich classroom discussions in mathematics. The district gathered both summative data on student performance and affective data on teacher development, basing its commitment to Conceptua on positive outcomes.
The Grandview Schools in eastern Washington serve a low-socioeconomic, primarily Hispanic community. Wilma Kozai, Assistant Superintendent, found that Conceptua Math meets the school district’s expectations about visual learning that emphasizes mathematical conversations, easy translation from one visual model to another, and differentiated instruction with inclusion. It also provides opportunities for teachers to deepen their understanding of the Common Core Content and Practice Standards.
Conceptua Math delivers online, visual and conceptual math curriculum to both students and teachers. The program is organized into month-long Big Ideas, units that are Common Core aligned and designed to foster deep conceptual understanding. Daily lessons include Openers and Closers, which are teacher-facilitated classroom discussions that employ interactive whiteboards or other front-of-the-room technologies. Students log in to Guided Lessons where they receive visual instruction and practice through Adaptive Teaching.
The grades 3-5 curriculum includes the already completed Conceptua Fractions content and adds whole number operations, place value, measurement, geometry, and data analysis. New visual models, a Conceptua specialty, will include arrays and number lines for multiplication and division, base ten blocks for place value, Singapore bar models, Geoboards, and more.
