This week’s assignment asked us to look for innovative course design.  I did a Google search using the phrase “innovative course design high school” and after looking through several pages, I came across a name that I am very familiar with–the Massachusetts Department of Education.  I have extensively used their public domain state testing questions as they are very similar to CATS questions.  The link for those multiple choice and open response questions is http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/testitems.html.  The main part of the page has 2007 questions, but there are hyperlinks on this page for 2006 and years before.

Their innovative course design is for improving mathematics scores.  The link to the article is http://campustechnology.com/articles/50670/.  The program they use is called Simcalc Mathworlds, and there is a link at the bottom of the article to the download site.  What I like about the program is that it is available in three formats:  TI-83/84 calculators, computer program, or TI-Navigator (a networking system for TI graphing calculators).  The computer download is 100 megabytes.  From a glance, it appears that it teaches students about different types of graphs (linear, quadratic, exponential, etc.).  I will play and post my thoughts this week.