Home Learning

If my child’s school is closed, does MLC have suggestions for continued learning at home?

First, we suggest you touch base with your child’s teacher to see if they have ideas or plans. You may also want to visit our Math at Home grade-level pages , which features a collection of Additional Resources for each grade level. (8/11/20)

My child’s teacher sent home some student book pages. Can I have access to an answer key or purchase a teacher’s edition?

We recommend you contact your child’s teacher, as they are the best source of information for assignments that are sent home. Our Bridges in Mathematics Second Edition materials are available only to educators who teach in schools or districts that have adopted the curriculum. (8/11/20)

Will MLC provide updated guidance for districts and schools?

MLC has provided  Guidance and Resources for 2020–21  through the Bridges Educator Site (login required) to assist teachers in planning for the coming year, whether the district is returning remotely, returning in-person, or using a hybrid model. (8/11/20)

How can teachers prioritize areas of the Bridges curriculum to emphasize?

The  Guidance and Resources for 2020–21  page on the Bridges Educator Site (login required) provides Guidance Documents. These documents include a revised scope and sequence, as well as unit planners, screeners, record sheets, and implementation guides. (8/11/20)

What are the options for workshops that can’t be done in person right now?

To meet the needs of schools and teachers preparing to implement the Bridges in Mathematics curriculum, The Math Learning Center has created a remote version of the Getting Started workshop. We will also be offering remote versions of Bridges Intervention and Bridges PreK workshops. Please  contact your regional coordinator  for further details. (8/11/20)

Will MLC provide digital activities for Bridges classrooms?

MLC will provide a variety of resources to support daily work with students, including a collection of tech-enhanced activities (TEAs). These activities will be available from the  Guidance and Resources for 2020-21  page on the Bridges Educator Site (login required). In addition, activities from  Math at Home  can be used to supplement instruction. (8/11/20)

Can students have access to materials on the Bridges Educator Site (BES), such as Work Places, student workbooks, and Digital Display Materials (DDMs)?

Although we aren’t able to provide students with direct online access to materials on the Bridges Educator Site, we have made a number of the Digital Work Places available within the BES. Teachers can share those links with students, and then students will be able to play some of the DDM games without needing to log in. Additionally, the Math at Home activities and resources do not require a login or registration — they're free and available to everyone. (8/11/20)

Can Bridges in Mathematics Second Edition material be posted within a learning management system (LMS) such as Canvas or Google Classroom?

With any LMS, we assume the materials are password protected (i.e., students and families need to log in for access). Within this context, MLC does not object to posting Bridges materials. In fact, we even allow materials to be emailed to families if a district does not have a mechanism for securely distributing materials otherwise. We consider it equivalent to sending physical materials home with the student in their backpack or folder. (8/11/20)

Can I share Bridges materials on social media for students and families to access?

You can share downloaded PDFs of student materials with the students and families you support. However, this needs to be through email or a secured site like Google Classroom. Bridges Second Edition materials may not be shared through unsecured social media or other sites. On the other hand, all resources on the Math at Home site are open to the public and may be shared via social media. (8/11/20)

What resources are available for students who do not have internet access at home?

The  module-level packets  available within the Bridges Educator Site (login required) can be used as written instruction for all students, regardless of internet access. To complement the packets, we’ve developed new activities on the  Math at Home  site as options for home learning. These materials may be printed and sent home. (8/11/20)

Can MLC produce e-worksheets based on the Bridges in Mathematics and Bridges Intervention materials?

While not in e-worksheet format, the  packets available through the BES  (login required) can be uploaded to Google Classroom or other learning management systems, or they can be printed, copied, and distributed to students. It’s possible to then use an app such as BitPaper, Kami, Evernote, or Notability to collect student responses. (8/11/20)

What resources and support will be available for Bridges Intervention?

We are considering ways we can support Bridges Intervention, and in the interim, we offer the following suggestions for working with students who require intervention:

• Use our  Math at Home  resources and look for material appropriate to the student’s current needs. For example, a Grade 4 student might be invited to consider a Grade 2 activity.
• The  U.S. Math Recovery Council  offers  short videos and game suggestions  that support computational fluency in a game-like format. (8/11/20)

Will Math Learning Center provide virtual assessments?

As part of the  Guidance and Resources for 2020–21  , MLC created screeners that can be used to determine students’ current level of readiness for grade-level content. These screeners will be offered both digitally and in PDF format. All other assessments within Bridges and Number Corner will remain available only in print. If you wish to use the assessments that appear within the Bridges curriculum, you can download them from the Curriculum tab of the Bridges Educator Site, then print, copy, and send them home for students. Responses could then be entered through a school learning management system. (8/11/20)

Will Pre-K Digital Display Materials be made available?

None of the materials within the Bridges Pre-K curriculum are currently available as DDMs. Our curriculum developers made a deliberate decision to keep tech out of the pre-K materials because learning occurs “from the hand to the head” for the youngest students. The Bridges Pre-K curriculum was designed for students to interact with geometric shapes, pattern blocks, and other manipulatives to develop understanding. Kinesthetic learning may be compromised if students are asked to complete similar activities on a device. Although MLC converted many existing DDMs in the other grade levels to student-facing versions, we have no plans to build new DDMs for pre-K at this time. That said,  other pre-K resources  , including read-alouds of selected math stories, are available on the  Math at Home  site. (8/27/20)

What materials are available in Spanish?

The Math Learning Center has created or translated the following resources in Spanish:

• Math at Home activities. We will continue to add activities in Spanish as they become available. No login or registration is required to access or use Math at Home.
• Digital Display Materials (DDMs) (BES login required). Teachers can use the button on the right side of the toolbar to toggle between English and Spanish.
• Digital Work Places (BES login required) Teachers, students, and families can toggle between English and Spanish using the button on the right side of the toolbar.
• Bridges Intervention Tech Resources (BES login required). The overview for each volume contains a resource chart, and links for both English and Spanish versions of the Tech Resources appear above the chart.

We plan to provide Spanish translations of the Tech-Enhanced Activities. While we had hoped to release the translated materials within weeks of the English materials, the complexity of the work means that we will not be able to achieve that ambitious goal.

We are aware that some teachers and districts, in the meantime, are attempting translations on their own. While we appreciate that this may be a matter of necessity, we ask that if you translate any TEAs, to please respect the following requests:

1. Clearly indicate with a prominent disclaimer that the translation was not completed by The Math Learning Center;
2. Distribute only internally, i.e., within your school or district;
3. Do not charge for use of the translations; 
4. Substitute our official versions when they become available. (1/22/21)