We need to “chat” about this PACE 1075 in math. I have been a math teacher for over 30 years, teaching 7th-12th grade math. This is a really tough PACE for young teens to do for several reasons:

  • The content is almost all new and very different
  • Most of the problems involve multiple steps
  • Many of the problems involve a lot of calculations

Probability and Statistics are the main topics for this PACE. These are topics that many of us adults did NOT learn when we were back in school. However, in the past couple of decades mathematicians and educators have determined that they should be introduced earlier and covered more thoroughly as part of a high school education.

My recommendations for covering this PACE are as follows:

  1. Do NOT just assign this PACE and assume your teen will be successful — that is an unreal expectation and is not your child’s fault.
  2. Expect to sit with him for every day’s lesson and go over it together, and even do a couple of the problems together, to make sure he knows what he is doing.
  3. If you are unable to do that, line up someone who can — your spouse, a college student at church, an older sibling
  4. You may also “skip” this PACE for now and pick it up at the end of the year, or at a time when you are more available to help. The content in this PACE is “stand-alone” (in other words, upcoming PACES don’t depend on a student mastering this one.)
  5. If you know of other students in your fellowship circle who are doing this same level, perhaps put a small Co-op class together to work through this PACE with a teacher
  6. In a Christian school setting I would recommend skipping this PACE until you can put all your 7th level students together and work through this PACE as a small class.
  7. Please allow students to use calculators to do the calculations to reduce careless mistakes (and frustration) and allow them to focus on understanding the concepts and steps involved.