Activity plans and videos demonstrating a competencies-based approach to secondary math.
While these activities are math-based, teachers at all levels and subjects may find inspiration in the approaches. Group work, problem solving on non-permanent surfaces, self-reflection, and getting students out of their chairs, and even their classroom, are some of the teaching strategies demonstrated that could be useful in many contexts.
In 2019, Open School BC hosted a two-day session with twelve educators from around the province to create activities for secondary math.
Teachers worked in groups developing activities with a set of curricular competencies as the focus. Activities included components of the First People’s Principles of Learning and Indigenous worldviews wherever possible. The result was one or more activities for each grade 8 through 12.
To complement the plans, we videoed teachers and students working through activities, creating videos with the following themes:
Video Transcript (PDF)
Mathematics 9 and Statistics 12 versions
Students analyze data that addresses the number of salmon returning to spawn and the temperature of oceans and rivers.
Mathematics 8 (adapt to use with Workplace Mathematics 10, 11 or Apprenticeship Mathematics 12)
Students look at the bentwood box, historically and contemporarily to undertake culturally relevant math exercises.
Foundations of Mathematics and Pre-calculus 10 (adapt to use in Workplace Mathematics 11, Foundations of Mathematics 12, Pre-calculus 12)
Students analyze, model (by hand and using technology), and compare population and food production data to predict the timing of a potential food shortage
Pre-calculus 11
Students create, play, move, draw, talk, and engage in many ways of learning and representing quadratics through a card game, graphing aerobics, and online games.
Pre-calculus 12 (adapt content to use in other math courses, e.g. Math 10 or Math 8)
Students work collaboratively at vertical non-permanent surfaces to solve a ‘real-life’ problems using sinusoidal functions.
Pre-calculus 12 (adapt to use with Math 11 courses)
Students demonstrate their mathematical abilities through modeling pictures as transformations of functions, including domain and range.
Open School BC gratefully acknowledges the writing and reviewing work of the following educators:
Will the Salmon Return?
Christine Ho Younghusband, Math and Teacher Educator, University of Northern BC
Leona Prince, Principal Aboriginal Education, Nechako Lakes School District
Pam Spooner, Director of Aboriginal Education, Prince George School District
Predicting a Catastrophe
Clare Hay, Delta School District
Don Rinald, Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools
Rebecca Sulek, Comox School District
Playing with Quadratics
Laura Epp, Coquitlam School District
Grant Gasser, Abbotsford School District
Let’s Communicate and Represent Math Using Trigonometry!
Jubilee Hu, Delta School District
Michael Pruner, North Vancouver School District
The Beauty of Math
Dalton Hamilton, Southeast Kootenay School District
Heather McIntosh, Central Okanagan School District
Exploring the Bentwood Box
Jared Hamilton, Peace River North School District
Christine Ho Younghusband, Math and Teacher Educator, University of Northern BC
Max Sterelyukhin, Southridge School, Surrey
Indigenous Review
Denise Augustine, Director of Aboriginal Education and Learner Engagement, Cowichan School District and secondee to Ministry of Education