The Mathematics Curriculum in Primary and Lower Secondary Grades
The Organization for Educational Research and Planning within the Ministry of Education is responsible for conveying the standards and principles of mathematics. In 2012, the organization introduced a new mathematics curriculum. The curriculum prescribes goals and objectives, instructional processes or methods, materials (textbooks and other instructional materials), assessment methods and activities, mathematics teacher competencies, characteristics of educational kits, and the process of implementing the curriculum. The main feature of the new curriculum is its approach to teaching. Prior to this curriculum, problem solving was considered an outcome of learning, but the recommended approach to teaching and learning in the new curriculum encourages teachers to engage students in problem solving and in class or group activities, as well as consider different learning styles when presenting a topic. The Ministry’s guidelines for mathematics emphasize the following areas: mathematics content (basic and essential facts and concepts), mathematical processes (problem solving, modeling simple real-life situations, making hypotheses and evaluating them, estimating, and reasoning), and general skills (critical and creative thinking, observation, abstraction and generalization, comparing and ordering, and classifying and sorting).
The following mathematics topics are covered in the fourth grade:
- Number and Operations—Whole numbers and their representations; estimation and computation with whole numbers; place value; the concepts of multiples and factors in terms of divisibility; the meaning of fractions as part of a collection and their location on the number line; equivalent fractions; comparing and ordering fractions; operations with fractions, such as adding and subtracting; multiplying fractions by whole numbers; number sentences, number patterns, and the extension of patterns; modeling simple situations; and comparing, adding, and subtracting decimals with at most one decimal digita
- Geometry and Measurement—Metric units; measuring, estimating, and drawing angles; length; areas of common two-dimensional shapes; parallel and perpendicular lines; comparison of angles; properties of common geometric shapes; calculation of the perimeter and area of parallelograms, rectangles, triangles, and squares; and figures with lines of symmetry
- Data Handling—reading and constructing pictographs, simple block diagrams, bar graphs, and line graphs for a given table of data; reading but not constructing pie charts; and empirical probabilityb
The following mathematics topics are covered in the eighth grade:
- Number and Operations—Multiplication and division of fractions and decimals and operations on them; conversion of fractions to decimals and vice versa; integers and computation with integers; ratio, proportion, and percent; mixed numbers, addition and subtraction of mixed numbers, and multiplication of mixed numbers by a whole number; and exponents and square roots
- Geometry and Measurement—Types of and relationships between angles; angles formed by a transversal that intersects parallel lines; perpendicular lines; congruent triangles and conditions for congruency; the Pythagorean theorem; three-dimensional objects and their relationships to two-dimensional shapes and drawing nets of three-dimensional shapes; the surface area and volume of a cylinder; rectangular prisms; cubes; circles, tangents, and angles; the circumference and area of a circle; irregular compound areas; Cartesian planes and intersections; reflection and rotational symmetry; and translations
- Algebra—Expressions; sums, products, and powers of algebraic expressions; simplifying algebraic expressions and evaluating algebraic expressions for given values; linear equations; and ordered pairs and coordinate systems
- Probability and Statistics—Chance; same likelihood; simple empirical and theoretical probability; histograms; and reading and constructing proper graphs and calculating the mean for a given set of data
- a The new program of study focuses on number patterns and sequences much more than the old program, and students are expected to find the relationship between terms of a sequence in order to extend and continue the sequence.
- b In the previous curriculum, the concepts of chance and probability were not introduced at the primary level, but in the new curriculum, students start working with probability at the primary level and are expected to be able to find and talk about outcomes of an event.