Select Page

Welcome, Eighth Grade Math Teachers.

This is an explanation of the cluster organization including links leading to the NC2ML Collaborative for specific resources.

The Collaborative Instructional Framework is meant to serve as a guide for teachers and districts as they organize the curriculum for the school year. Unlike traditional pacing guides, the instructional framework consists of clusters of standards that are meant to be adapted to various schools and contexts. The instructional framework used research on students’ learning progression in mathematics to create and order clusters of standards that are taught together. While there is a strongly suggested order for teaching the clusters, we recognize that schools differ in their contexts and may wish to switch the order around. In those cases, we have given guidance regarding alternative clusterings; however, we note when certain clusters need to be taught in a certain order.

The clusters are recommended using the progression in the framework, but this is not the only possible progression teachers may use. Please look to the “Connections & Rationale” for notes about when one cluster must follow another, if another progression is desired. Also, continue to focus on how the Standards for Mathematical Practice can be incorporated with these content clusters. If considering changing the order of the clusters, we suggest keeping most of the sequence with the following two alternative orderings.

Recommended Order:
Reasoning about Similarity and Transformations Cluster
Functional Reasoning Cluster
Reasoning about Equations and Angles Cluster
Statistical Reasoning Cluster
Reasoning with Rational/Irrational Numbers (and Pythagorean Theorem) Cluster
Reasoning about Exponents/Scientific Notation Cluster

Alternative A:
Reasoning about Similarity and Transformations Cluster
Functional Reasoning Cluster
Statistical Reasoning Cluster
Reasoning about Equations and Angles Cluster
Reasoning with Rational/Irrational Numbers (and Pythagorean Theorem) Cluster **
Reasoning with Exponents/Scientific Notation Cluster**
** Real numbers and exponents units can be switched according to your preference

Alternative B:
Reasoning about Similarity and Transformations Cluster
Reasoning about Equations and Angles Cluster
Functional Reasoning Cluster
Statistical Reasoning Cluster
Reasoning with Rational/Irrational Numbers (and Pythagorean Theorem) Cluster **
Reasoning with Exponents/Scientific Notation Cluster**
** Real numbers and exponents units can be switched according to your preference

Please pay attention to the “Supporting Standards” and “Connections & Rationale” portions of this recommendation. These tools should help to connect mathematical concepts across the units, and to highlight potential opportunities for revisiting previous units’ main ideas.

Click Here to Access Materials from Previous Grants
Click here to access resources
ClusterRecommended TimeStandards
Building a Mathematical Community (Boaler's Week of Inspirational Math - Week 3)1 week
Reasoning about Similarity and Transformations Cluster4 weeksG.3, G.2, G.4
Supporting standards
NC7.G.1, NC8.G.5
Functional Reasoning Cluster8 weeksF.1, F.2, F.3, F.4, F.5, EE.8
Supporting standards
Builds on Grade 7 Equations
Reasoning about Equations and Angles Cluster6 weeksEE.7, G.5
Supporting standards
G.4
Statistical Reasoning Cluster4 weeksSP.1, SP.2, SP.3, SP.4
Supporting standards
EE.7
Reasoning with Rational/Irrational numbers (and Pythagorean Theorem) Cluster8 weeksNS.1, NS.2, EE.2, G.6, G.7, G.8, G.9
Supporting standards
EE.7
Reasoning about Exponents/Scientific Notation Cluster3 weeksEE.1, EE.3, EE.4