NCTM Standards: Algebra

"In high school, students should have opportunities to build on these earlier experiences, both deepening their understanding of relations and functions and expanding their repertoire of familiar functions. Students should use technological tools to represent and study the behavior of polynomial, exponential, rational, and periodic functions, among others. They will learn to combine functions, express them in equivalent forms, compose them, and find inverses where possible. As they do so, they will come to understand the concept of a class of functions and learn to recognize the characteristics of various classes.

"High school algebra also should provide students with insights into mathematical abstraction and structure. In grades 9-12, students should develop an understanding of the algebraic properties that govern the manipulation of symbols in expressions, equations, and inequalities. They should become fluent in performing such manipulations by appropriate meansmentally, by hand, or by machineto solve equations and inequalities, to generate equivalent forms of expressions or functions, or to prove general results.

"The expanded class of functions available to high school students for mathematical modeling should provide them with a versatile and powerful means for analyzing and describing their world. With utilities for symbol manipulation, graphing, and curve fitting and with programmable software and spreadsheets to represent iterative processes, students can model and analyze a wide range of phenomena. These mathematical tools can help students develop a deeper understanding of real-world phenomena. At the same time, working in real-world contexts may help students make sense of the underlying mathematical concepts and may foster an appreciation of those concepts."

     

California Content Standards: Mathematics

     

Philadelphia Standards: Patterns, Algebra, and Functions - Grades 12-9

1. Research the historical development of patterns, functions, and algebra from many cultures.
2. Represent given situations with a linear, quadaratic, logarithmic, exponential, or trigonometric function and make projections about the situation based on the function.
3. Discover, describe, generalize, and use basic types of functions, including linear, exponential, periodic, power, rational, squares, and square roots.
4. Work with properties and mechanics of functions, i.e., evaluation, inverses, slope, local maxima and minima, intersections; satisfy specific constraints.
5. Use many kinds of proportional relationships, including rate and ratio.
6. Use linear (arithmetic) and geometric sequences.
7. Define variables, parameters, and constants and show how they work with both equations and functions.
8. Solve equations, both symbolically and graphically, especially linear, quadratic, and exponential equations, including appropriate use of the quadratic formulas.
9. Represent functional relationships in formulas, tables, and graphs, and translate among these.
10. Demonstrate the connections between equations and curves such as lines, circles, ellipses, parabolas, and hyperbolas.
11. Demonstrate a knowledge of functions to represent patterns, including periodic functions such as sine, cosine, and tangent.
12. Connect mathematical models to physical phenomena (e.g., hours of daylight to time of year)."

    For Student Work/Assessments, Grade-Specific Concepts/Skills, and Best Practices, visit the School District of Philadelphia Curriculum Frameworks and click on "The FRAMEWORKS GRID."