Curriculum Development for Pre-Algebra in Select Las Vegas High Schools
Quinn Kendall
NSHE ID: 2002513292
(702) 799-7185 ex. 3808
Curriculum and Instruction in Secondary Mathematics
Dr. Peter Wiens
CIS 684 1001
Section 2: Goals, Standards, and Students
Demographics
First, I must outline the criteria that I had for the “select” high schools in Las Vegas that this curriculum would be designed for. Since my position will be at Rancho High School, I sought to find a handful of schools to analyze similar to Rancho, all of which could implement the curriculum since their students would come from similar backgrounds and thus have similar experiences at home to contribute to a curriculum that applies to the majority of the students enrolled at each school. First, I explored Clark County School District’s zoning feature (2024) and obtained a list of every high school in CCSD that was either in North Las Vegas, like my current school, or inner city Las Vegas, like Rancho. I chose both regions of the city since Bridger Middle feeds into Rancho.
Next, I created a spreadsheet to log the data and eliminated charter schools, specialized high schools such as technical schools or performing arts schools (National Center for Education Statistics), and schools that did not qualify for Title I funding (Clark County School District, 2023). This process left me with seven high schools in CCSD: Canyon Springs, Cheyenne, Desert Pines, Eldorado, Mojave, Rancho, and Sunrise Mountain. Cross-referencing with the demographics of students at each school results in the following data:
| American Indian/ Alaska Native | Asian | Black | Hispanic | Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander | White | |
| Canyon Springs | 0.22% | 1.77% | 25.52% | 65.61% | 0.44% | 3.38% |
| Cheyenne | 0.47% | 3.55% | 28.58% | 51.66% | 1.99% | 8.39% |
| Desert Pines | 0.13% | 1.24% | 15.04% | 76.64% | 0.83% | 3.68% |
| Eldorado | 0.24% | 1.97% | 9.79% | 77.30% | 0.77% | 7.82% |
| Mojave | 0.40% | 3.55% | 27.77% | 54.86% | 1.56% | 6.38% |
| Rancho | 0.36% | 3.36% | 8.98% | 77.90% | 0.59% | 5.78% |
| Sunrise Mountain | 0.23% | 0.80% | 13.35% | 78.41% | 0.50% | 4.39% |
| Average | 0.29% | 2.32% | 18.43% | 68.91% | 0.95% | 5.69% |
This data shows that each of these schools have over 90% of their population coming from disenfranchised communities and the majority of students come from hispanic descent. These schools all have English Language Learners (ELLs). These schools have many students who qualify for free or reduced lunch, and likely follow the trend seen at Rancho of many students being below grade level in most content areas.
This data directly influences the curriculum design process, because real life application questions need to be structured around the experiences that the students in these demographics might experience. It is unlikely that the families have a significant amount of excess income to spend on luxuries, so instructional days should be planned with their experiences in mind. The goal is to weave local Las Vegas experiences into any real life application questions to try to make the content as approachable as possible, and to have a high number of real life application questions to try to connect content with their experiences as often as possible. When designing the curriculum, it is also important to keep in mind that at all seven schools, the majority of students come from a hispanic background, so it is also important to include questions that relate to hispanic heritage specifically on occasion, but not exclusively, as that would alienate a portion of the students.
Next, I need to discuss Pre-Algebra students at Rancho as a whole. Beginning next year, Rancho will no longer allow students to retake Pre-Algebra. Previously, it was a class that had all high school grade levels enrolled, but now students will be forced to Algebra I whether they pass Pre-Algebra or not. So, when I teach the course, it will be ninth grade only, with maybe a few tenth grade exceptions. This is pivotal to any “relatable” questions I try to design for my lessons, because if the students were older they might relate to tasks with more adult responsibility. For example, if I were teaching high school seniors, they would likely get references to driving and many might even drive themselves to school or to work. Instead, since the students will only be freshmen, they will not yet be driving and are unlikely to have a legal after school job, since most require you to be fifteen years old.
Unit Content
The unit on solving two-step equations based on CCSD’s pacing guide should take two weeks. The prior grade-level content standards that it builds on are from seventh grade: 7.EE.A.1 and 7.EE.A2. This sets up students for success with the content expectations for the unit, 8.EE.C.7, 8.EE.C.7a, and 8.EE.C.7b. Essentially, prior to the lesson, students should already be able to “apply properties of operations as strategies to add, subtract, factor, and expand linear expressions with rational coefficients” and to “recognize and represent proportional relationships between quantities” (Clark County School District, n.d.). With this knowledge, students will be learning how to solve linear equations in one variable, talk about the solutions of linear equations (infinitely many solutions, one solution, or no solutions), show and explain how many solutions a linear equation has, solve linear equations with rational number coefficients, use the distributive property, and combine like terms (Clark County School District, n.d.).
The unit will be broken down into four content lessons. The first lesson will include the distributive property and combining like terms. The second lesson will show students how to solve two-step equations using the reverse order of operations method. The third lesson will show students how to solve two-step equations using two kinds of visual models: the double number line and an algebraic expression model. The fourth lesson will discuss equations with one solution, no solution, and infinitely many solutions.
Each lesson will have class notes that are completed together. Students will be given a notes template breaking down a procedure into three simple steps for this assignment. There will be a 3-act math activity based on an airplane that is descending into Nellis Air Force Base at a constant rate. There will also be a performance task relating to students in various after school activities at Rancho, where students will need to write an equation for each activity and each activity will provide data via a different method. There will be two small quizzes instead of one long test: one quiz will be procedural based for distributing, combining like terms, and solving two-step equations, and the other will be real life application questions that require students to use those three skills to arrive at the correct solution. By using formative assessments that are collaborative and relate to local Las Vegas experiences, students will hopefully engage more deeply with the content and have greater mastery of the CCSD high school Pre-Algebra standards.
Quinn Kendall, Educator 