Mrs. Buckley

Even Albert Einstein had difficulties with math!

Welcome to the upper school math classes at New Vistas School. It took me almost 30 years of teaching high school mathematics in Virginia to find the job I enjoy now and I’ve been at NVS for about eleven years. I get to spend each day with terrific young people. I get to work with an excellent staff. I get to talk about math all day. I get to explain complicated things in a way that students can understand and be successful. I get to play games, play with manipulatives, act out word problems, go on field trips, draw pictures and color them. Am I lucky or what?
This year we offer the following classes for high school credit. They are taught with each student’s learning style in mind.

Math Fundamentals –.  This is a one-year course designed to review those skills introduced in middle school. The course is designed to strengthen a student’s number sense such as rounding and estimating, to strengthen their computational skills with whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and percents, and to use ratios and proportions to solve practical problems.  Additional topics include probability, measurement, time, money, charts and graphs.  Critical thinking skills are taught and practiced through out the course.  

Algebra 1 Part 1 - This is the first course in a two-year sequence designed to give students a strong foundation in algebra.  In first semester, students focus on operating with integers and writing and solving multi-step equations involving rational numbers.  During second semester, students study relations and functions.  They focus on graphing and writing equations of linear functions.  Critical thinking skills are taught and practiced throughout. 

Algebra 1 Part 2 –   This course is the second in a two-year series. The course is designed to expose students to linear inequalities, systems of equations and inequalities, polynomials and factoring. The also explore quadratic functions as well. Critical thinking skills are taught and practiced throughout. 

Geometry – This is a one-year course designed to introduce students to the basic concepts of geometry and how these concepts affect their daily lives.  They explore congruent and similar polygons as well as circles and 3-dimensional shapes. This includes perimeter, area and volume.  They also explore parallel lines, right triangles and basic trig ratios. Both algebra and logic are used to promote critical thinking skills. 

Algebra 2 – This is a one-year course.  It is designed to expand those skills previously introduced in Algebra 1 and to develop a working understanding of a variety of different functions and relations. They explore sequences and series along with matrices, rational and radical expressions and conic sections. Critical thinking skills are both taught and practiced.