Endorsement of ThinkSharp Curriculum
Professor Barbara Hess
California University of Pennsylvania

I have been using the ThinkSharp Curriculum in one of my college math classes for three semesters and I don't think a few short words of praise can do this curriculum justice! The ThinkSharp Curriculum combines real world scenarios, small group interaction and mathematics and the combination spells success. Each semester I have taught using this curriculum, I always find myself enjoying this course more than any of the other math courses I teach. There are several reasons for this.

First, I believed in this curriculum before I ever used it because this company took the time to carefully align their materials with the NCTM Principles and Standards. Each lesson lists the Principles and Standards that were addressed by the lesson. Each lesson is well scripted so that the instructor knows exactly what to do and how long it will take. The pedagogy is based upon constructivism so that the instructor acts as a facilitator rather than a lecturer. If you ever wanted to know how to teach in this manner, this curriculum shows you how!

The second reason that I enjoy the course is because the students enjoy it. At first students are a little hesitant if they have never worked in a small group on problems but after the first couple of classes, students begin to enjoy themselves and their other group members. They are no longer listening and watching an instructor do mathematics but they are doing mathematics and talking about it themselves. This is the first math class that I have taught where students are not zipping up book bags, closing notebooks and getting ready to leave five minutes before the class ends. On the contrary, I have had some groups stay and work after class until they get to a point where they feel comfortable in stopping. I just had this happen in a 3 hour night class! Each semester I teach this course, more students want to sign up for it. How many times have you had students stay after class to work on problems or beat down your door to enroll in your math course?

The third and final reason that I will list here, that I enjoy teaching with ThinkSharp materials is that students are successful with this material. The second time I taught with these materials, a phenomenon took place that has never happened before in any math class that I have ever taught. After the first exam, no student scored lower than a C on the rest of the examinations. When I observed what was happening, I couldn't have been more pleased. After the first exams, the small groups found out which persons in their group had either failed the exam or struggled with it. The groups then assisted those persons in studying for the next exam.

I highly endorse this curriculum. It is well thought out from the printed materials to the on-line text, it correlates with the NCTM Principles and Standards, excites students (and teachers too!) about mathematics and answers the age old question, "When am I ever going to have to use this?"