Unit Plan 1 (Grade 8 Math): Building Our Math Community & Problem-Solving Norms
8th graders establish math discourse and notebook routines while learning to self-check and analyze errors. Through rich tasks, they preview key Grade 8 concepts—slope as rate, functions, exponents, and transformations—building habits of precision, reasoning, and reflection.
Focus: Establish routines for math discourse, notebooks, self-checking, and error analysis. Launch with rich tasks that preview Grade 8 themes (linear patterns, exponents, and transformations).
Grade Level: 8
Subject Area: Mathematics (Number System • Expressions & Equations • Functions • Geometry • Mathematical Practices)
Total Unit Duration: 5 sessions (one week), 45–60 minutes per session
I. Introduction
This launch week builds a thinking classroom: norms for math talk, notebooks, self-checking, and error-as-data mindsets. Students will solve rich, low-floor/high-ceiling tasks that preview key Grade 8 ideas—linear patterns (slope/rate), functions (input→output), integer exponents, and rigid motions—while practicing the Mathematical Practices (MP.1–MP.8) every day.
II. Objectives and Standards
Learning Objectives — Students will be able to…
- Use and reflect on problem-solving routines (understand → plan → try → revise) and discourse norms to explain reasoning and critique ideas (MP.1, MP.3).
- Track thinking in a math notebook, apply self-check strategies (estimation, inverse operations, unit checks), and use error analysis to revise work (MP.6, MP.7, MP.8).
- From tasks, preview Grade 8 content: interpret slope as rate of change in proportional situations and recognize a function as a rule assigning each input exactly one output (8.EE.5, 8.F.1).
Standards Alignment — CCSS Grade 8
- 8.EE.5: Graph proportional relationships, interpreting the unit rate as the slope of the graph; compare two different proportional relationships represented in different ways (e.g., by tables, graphs, equations).
- 8.F.1: Understand that a function is a rule that assigns to each input exactly one output; the graph of a function is the set of ordered pairs consisting of an input and the corresponding output.
- Standards for Mathematical Practice (MP.1–MP.8):
- MP.1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
- MP.2: Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
- MP.3: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
- MP.4: Model with mathematics.
- MP.5: Use appropriate tools strategically.
- MP.6: Attend to precision.
- MP.7: Look for and make use of structure.
- MP.8: Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.
Success Criteria — student language
- I can explain my plan and revise it after checking against estimates or a graph.
- I can use evidence (table, graph, example) to support or critique a solution.
- I can describe slope as a rate in context and say what a function means (one input → one output).
- I can write clear, labeled work in my notebook and identify an error and how I fixed it.