Algebra I

Course Overview

Algebra I covers the study of variables, constants, expressions, and equations. Upon successful completion of this course a student will understand linear equations and inequalities, relations and functions, pairs of linear equations and inequalities, exponents and polynomials, quadratic functions, data analysis and probability, exponents and radical functions, and rational functions and equations. This course is organized around the idea that problem solving (investigating, conjecturing, predicting, analyzing, and verifying), followed by a well-reasoned presentation of results, is central to the process of learning mathematics, and that this learning happens most effectively in a cooperative, student-centered classroom. The resulting curriculum is problem-centered rather than topic-centered. There is also a continual spiraling throughout the curriculum, so topics are constantly being reinforced.

The purpose of this format is to have students continually encounter mathematics set in meaningful contexts, enabling them to draw, and then verify, their own conclusions. This pedagogy demands that students be active contributors in class each day; they are expected to ask questions, to share their results with their classmates, and to be prime movers of each day’s investigations. They are not necessarily expected to solve the exercise alone, but through collaboration with their peers, they should be able to understand it. The benefit of such participation in the students’ study of mathematics is an enhanced ability to ask effective questions, to answer fellow students’ inquiries, and to critically assess and present their own work. The goal is that the students, not the teacher or a textbook, be the source of mathematical knowledge.