UPDATE: version 0.3 of these notes are out now.
I’ve been working on a big project over summer: a set of student notes with fully worked examples for an entire year of Algebra 2.
You might be wondering why I did this. I’m not even teaching High School currently, as I’m taking a couple of years to attend grad school. While I’m doing some teaching, it’s been as a TA for Calculus 1, certainly not for Algebra 2. Even so, I’ve still spent a lot of time thinking about Algebra 2 curriculum over the past year, and had a lot of conversations about it with Sarah, as she is has been teaching Algebra 2 since last August. It turns out, even after taking some time away, my passion is still for high school math.
These are the ideas I’ve had for the function of these notes:
- They’re aiming to meet the Oklahoma Academic Standards, though in places they step back to strengthen the conceptual foundation, and in others they go beyond the standards. Eventually I’ll produce an alignment document to explain all the links.
- This is not a complete curriculum, but I see it functioning as a “skeleton” on which a complete curriculum could be built.
- The notes focus almost purely on the mathematics, not on “real world” applications (with a few exceptions in statistics topics). This is not because these are unimportant; on the contrary, they are vital. But I believe these are better addressed using methods other that pre-prepared notes.
- The intent is that the notes would be hole-punched and kept in a binder. This means if a teacher doesn’t like how I’ve done something, they can change it. Remove the parts you don’t like. If you don’t think there are enough examples, add more.
- Teachers can incorporate the notes and examples as they wish into their lessons. While textbooks give they answers to examples away from the start, with fill-in-the-blanks, the teacher can choose at what point in the class discussion they make the correct answers known.
You might remember that I was working on a book of Algebra 2 practice questions. That’s still ongoing, but it’s been overtaken somewhat by these notes. But that’s okay, because I see these as two aspects of the same long-term project. Having the notes planned out should make planning questions a lot easier.
If all of this sounds good, here’s the great news: I’m going release the notes as I work on them. And while they’re still just a first draft at this point, that first draft is entirely done, and hopefully in a usable form for the upcoming school year.
Download them here:
Thanks so much for sharing these for FREE! I’m moving to binders from notebooks this year and these will help! You and your wife are awesome! God bless 🙂
I love this!! Thank you for all of the time and effort you put into building these notes. I agree with your statement that functions are the skeleton of Algebra 2. We wrote the Oklahoma algebra 2 frameworks resource with that exact philosophy. Thanks again!
Wow! Thank you so much for sharing these. We don’t have an algebra 2 course but I should be able to spread these throughout my courses.
Thanks for sharing!! 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼
Thanks so much for sharing this resource!
That’s an incredible amount of thought and work you’ve put into this publication Shaun. Thank you so much for sharing. You embody the true spirit of educating children. You’re a new inspiration for me.
Thanks for sharing
Thank you for sharing these. I can’t believe they are free. I am in Arkansas, but there are definitely MANY concepts that this document will help with. Big big kudos and thanks!
Thank you so much for sharing. I am in Thailand, we don’t use the lesson like this but it inspires me a lot. I would like to know what program do you use to type this document and all the figures and symbols?
It’s all LaTeX. Be warned that it has a steep learning curve, but if you put in the time you can get some really nice results.
Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for sharing! This is an incredible resource. I wonder if you would be willing to post the tex file in addition to the pdf?
I might share them some point in the future, but I’ll need to tidy up the code a lot before I’d be willing to do that.
Thanks for sharing. Great resources! It is nice to see teachers like you willing to help others.
Thanks for sharing!!!!! Do you where I can get something like this for Algebra I?
Thanks so much for sharing these for FREE!
Your passion is clearly shown by your selfless dedication to helping others.
I’m not a teacher, just a grandmother who gathers information for my grandchildren … Again, thank you so much for sharing! Bless you