Course launch: what a mathematician does
Set norms; take the ratio pre-assessment.
Ratios & Rates · Launch day · 60 minutes
Teacher poses the unit's driving question, students talk before they compute, then everyone takes a short pre-assessment that tells the teacher who already has the prerequisite skills.
The real problem this unit answers, framed around Columbus, Georgia.
Workbook handed out, unit tab set, self-assessment scale reviewed.
8–10 items on prerequisite skills. Not graded. Drives the first week's grouping.
One approachable problem from the new standard, no instruction yet.
One problem on the day's standard. Collected at the door and sorted into got it / almost / not yet before the next period.
- · Open with the unit question before the vocabulary. Students should be able to say why "course launch: what a mathematician does" matters before they see a single term.
- · Read the pre-assessment directions aloud and say plainly that it is not graded. Students who believe it counts will guess instead of leaving blanks, and blanks are the useful signal.
- · Score the pre-assessment before tomorrow. It sets the reteach table for the whole first week.
Students talk about the unit question before they compute anything, set up their workbook tab, and take a short pre-assessment that does not count for a grade.
Exit ticket: One problem on the day's objective: set norms; take the ratio pre-assessment.
Homework: None. Day one is for the read on the room.
Paper. Chromebooks stay closed — the pre-assessment is on the workbook's first spread so the teacher can read it fast.
The unit workbook, one per student, printed once for the whole unit.
Open the print set →No portfolio piece today. No portfolio piece. The pre-assessment is diagnostic, not evidence. Students document on lab days, performance tasks, and project anchor lessons — roughly two pieces per unit, not one per day.