r/matheducation

How does your school handle students who want to skip over Algebra 1? Our 8th grade has 2 levels: 8th grade math and Algebra 1. There is a cohort of about 25 students (their parents, really) who want them to skip Algebra 1 and go right into Geometry like their peers who took Algebra 1 in 8th grade. In this community parents won't take no for an answer.

For reference I'm in the US, New England specifically. I am picking up the pieces of the choices of my district's central administration. Well there's about 4 of us picking up the pieces. The district implemented a new middle school math curriculum and one year later combined the math science department heads at middle/high school into STEM. The math guy left and the science guy absorbed the responsibilities, so we're trying to help him out figure out this shit show. Prior to implementing the new curriculum this wasn't as much of an issue because we used a home grown curriculum where 8th grade math and Algebra 1 were more aligned. Now they're not even close.

As a 1-year patch we actually created a semester course to bridge their gaps that they can take concurrently with geometry. 5 of the 25 students can't fit it into their schedule because it conflicts with a music course, or something. We are talking about creating an asynchronous course that students can do at home, and they will have check-ins with me and a few in-person exams. I can build it out on delta math and create a course in our LMS with recorded video lectures. We need to cover: some solving linear equations, systems of linear equations, functions, and quadratics. Does anyone know of something online and free that is already made? We can't use Khan Academy.

So, I teach grades 8 through 12 and this is about my 11th grade algebra 2 class. Today was our second day of school. Yesterday, I really focused on watching them collaborate, letting them get back into being with their classmates, involving the new students, so I could watch them interact with each other so I could see how they were going to be if we ever have to do group work or anything. This is my first year teaching. I have been a para, I have been a substitute, I ran a daycare center for 3 years, I went to college for education for three and a half years and then quit taking classes. Teaching is what I enjoy and what I'm good at, I just don't know what I did wrong with this lesson. I'm trying to follow the books, but they aren't very in-depth. I did not pick this curriculum it was chosen by the math teacher who was here previously, so I looked for the additional resources and the additional resources are 10 added questions and then a review of a completely different subject material. We were trying to do transformations of parent functions. They understood what the parent functions were and they could categorize them as constants, linear, absolute value, or quadratic, but asking them, "okay, so, if we add a three to the end of the equation, what does that do to our graph? *y=(x^2)+3 instead of y=(x^2)*" They just stare at me. I don't even know how to describe it. I know from past conversations that their previous teacher would take points away for asking for help, she would take points away if they asked for help from another teacher, too. Part of the issue is they don't know how to ask for help because they have not been allowed to. They just say, "I don't get it!" and when I try to walk them through it again, they give up. My current plan is to go over it again tomorrow, because something did not click between what I was saying and what they were or weren't getting. I just feel so defeated, and I know that it isn't the kids' fault, but I'm at a loss for what other information could be helpful for them.

I'm a card-carrying member of the Old-School, and was recently remembering that I learned in 5th grade how to calculate Square Roots by hand using a technique that looks a lot like long division. That made me curious about other "old-school" methods and techniques. I already know about slide rules (I'm a collector). A quick google search reminded me of "Casting Out Nines" to check for math errors.

I remember learning about Casting out nines, but can't remember the grade.

I also remember learning how to look up numbers in log tables, trig tables.

Are there any other old-school techniques folks might remember, and when those concepts might have been introduced in old-school math education?

Mark Johnson

I've been thinking about how often a student appears to struggle with algebra when the underlying problem may be something much earlier.

For example:

3x/4 = 12

A student gets stuck.

At what point would you stop working on the algebra problem and check whether they are comfortable with fractions?

Or would you keep working within the algebra problem?

Curious how teachers handle this in practice.

This has been written for the 'math savvy' audience. It has not been written well enough to present to typical Algebra 2 or PreCalculus students. But, when developed further, what concerns would there be in introducing this idea of parameters to Algebra 2/PreCalculus students?

I do want to start having AP Calculus BC and AP Physics C students consider this, so any feedback, about either the idea or the description, would be appreciated.

Thank you.

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https://preview.redd.it/o3fqhtnio3kh1.png?width=2050&format=png&auto=webp&s=88ba24268104f34e99395fb023a457943adbc12d

I have been teaching secondary math for several decades, but have never taught Geometry nor honors. This year they have assigned me Geometry Honors. I am working on putting some lessons together. I'm just trying to crowd source ideas for specific topics, this time compass constructions. How do you introduce compass constructions? How do you convey its importance to a class of students new to Geometry? (It will be our second lesson of the year.) Any ideas are welcome!

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I've been building CruxMath, a free site with hints that show the intuition behind a solution rather than reveal the whole solution at once in the hope that it will teach students better than regular practice problems.

For example, here is 2026 AIME II #1:

"Find the sum of the 10th terms of all arithmetic sequences of integers that have first term equal to 4 and include both 24 and 34 as terms."

The first hint is:

"Every term is 4 plus a multiple of d. Since 24 and 34 both appear, what must be true about 24−4 and 34−4?"

Does that reveal too much/too little? More importantly, would it help teach someone to see a similar idea in a future problem?

Would love any feedback. The full hint sequence and solution are at cruxmath.com.

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I’ve heard Aleks is used for math placement at many colleges. Would the placement and lessons following be good to help with any gaps on the ACT? It looks like you can do it for $20 per month. I honestly know nothing about Aleks. Its website says it an “adaptive machine learning designed an efficient way to determine students’ precise knowledge and provide them with a personalized, meaningful learning experience.”

https://www.aleks.com/buy\_aleks\_now

Hi! My name is Adam, and I enjoy puzzles.

Turns out I like inventing puzzles as well.

Though I’m not a developer, so the actual mechanics of the game I’ve been doing through Replit, which IS helping me learn to develop.

It’s been a fun couple of weeks, and I’m posting this here instead of more gaming oriented boards just because I’m hoping that the people who enjoy learning and mathematics can appreciate it for what it is, and criticize it for what it is as well. I am not as interested in all the ways it’s not a real game yet, or if it ever will be.

I know nothing about developing games.

I don’t know if this game is fun enough to warrant turning into a 60 level campaign and an app.

It’s free right now, and I want to keep it free, because it’s about fun.

I would just like a little feedback first about it before I put any more money into it into full game development.

If this isn’t the right subreddit for this I apologize.

Cheers!

-Adam

I built mathiq.io with Claude Code because I wanted a way for students struggling with college level maths to see how the problems can be broken down and not as intimidating. Each walkthrough goes from beginning to end and each step has a "why and how?" feature. Anon users get 1 free daily walkthrough powered by Haiku 4.5. Signed in users get 3 free daily walkthroughts powered by Haiku 4.5. Plus users get 5 Opus 4.6 walkthroughs plus 20 Sonnet 4.6. Pro users get 8 Opus/30 Sonnet. There are more features for pro and plus users. The more premium models are recommended for higher level maths. Each walkthrough is prompt engineered via 20,000 character prompt in order to give reliable walkthroughs and tutor-like personality. Highly recommend checking it out for your upcoming courses!

I am still trying to get users and traffic to see where I can improve. PM me for a free month of Pro/Plus. I am willing to do this for a hand-full of first users!

Hey, I was thinking of starting a YouTube channel where I go through core University-level maths content. It would likely be formatted as a series of playlists for each of the “main” maths classes/modules that maths students (as well as other similar disciplines) can learn from.

What kind of things do you think would be the most important aspects of these videos? Visual graphics ? Slower explanations than what you’d probably get from a lecture? Animations ? Examples? Humour?

Are there other forms of education content you’d have wanted to see more of when you were doing your degree (other than videos)?

Thanks

I'm korean undergraduates student in ai and about to teach 15 age math. I want to teach him not calculating but interest in math so he can think about fundamentals and feel joy of math. If not interesting in math, finding that fact is also meaningful.

In ai ages, mechanical calculating just like Korean matheducation is outdated and not good at teens.

Could anyone share your joyful experience of math or methods for teaching?

Phillips Exeter, Lawrenceville and etc. are using Harkness method in teacher. For humanity subjects, I can imagine how that would inspire students to discuss and debate. How about subjects like Calculus or Chemistry? Are there more instructions than discussions? Just curious how that works.