CMP4 Field-Test Process

Connected Mathematics4: Co-Development with Teachers and Students

• Used feedback gathered from the field of CMP3 to inform new edits
• One year of design and feedback on some new features and feedback on some new features
• Four years of design, field-test, and evaluate and revise
• On-going Professional Learning during field-testing
• On-going research, evaluation, and interactions with the mathematics education community after the publication of CMP4

 

Teacher Testimonials

"Engagement in my classroom with CMP 4 is very high! I have yet to see a student disinterested in a problem or unmotivated to solve it. The contexts are real, interesting, and challenging. Every child, regardless of ability, has an entry point! Also, the What If? has additional practice for any level and allows me to reach all learners."

Melanie Del Grosso, Junior High Math Teacher
St. John Bosco Catholic School, Arizona

 

"The CMP STEM Problem format is refreshing, intuitive, and self-differentiating. Students begin by engaging with new concepts at an entry level and each can go as deep into the problem as is appropriate for their individual levels of understanding."

Chris Driscoll, Grade 7
Falmouth Middle School, Maine

 

"Starting off the sixth-grade year with an algebra unit provides students many authentic opportunities to apply and deepen their algebraic understanding all year long. Using the CMP4 materials has increased my students’ confidence and empowered them to be more algebraic in their mathematical thinking and communication."

Jenny Douglas, Grade 6
Forest Hills Public Schools, Michigan

"Teaching CMP4 is riveting! Never have I ever seen students so engrossed in mathematics! They are explorers, detectives, scientists, mathematicians, and inventors! They enter the classroom with so much enthusiasm it’s almost as if they don’t even realize they are learning!"

Heather Gust, Grade 6
Timberstone Junior High, Sylvania, Ohio

 

Courses Taught During Field Test

The CMP4 Field Test materials were used to teach a variety of courses from 6th Grade General Mathematics to Advanced Algebra 1.

Below is the rating of the effectiveness of CMP4 design features as perceived by the Field Test teachers.

The CMP authors at Michigan State University started writing curriculum materials with the Middle Grades Mathematics Project (MGMP) in the 1980s. Since then and with every edition of Connected Mathematics, they have attended to Curriculum Design and Teacher Enactment Tensions as shown in the following chart:

Adapted from: Edson, A.J., Wald, S., & Phillips, E. D. (2025). The design, field-testing, and evaluation of a contextual, problem-based curriculum: Feedback analysis from mathematics teachers on the fourth edition of CMP. Education Sciences, 15(5), 628 1-29. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci15050628

 

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More Teacher Testimonials

"CMP4 allows students to access math curriculum with relevant contextual situations. It also requires students to dig deeper into the patterns that occur in mathematics which leads them to a deeper understanding of traditional formulas and traditionally memorized algorithms. They learn WHY it works, not just how it works."

 

"Student engagement, critical thinking and problem solving are all evident through the instruction of CMP4… The connection of mathematics to the real world through each Investigation draws the students into an engaged learning that I have not seen when teaching other math programs."

 

"CMP4 gets students to think about the problem or situation and evaluate possible ways to solve it. This allows the student to discover the correct math practices and approaches, rather than the teacher simply providing it to them."

 

"CMP4 will push you as a teacher and your students to think and communicate about mathematics… The CONNECTED part is beginning to all make sense. I won’t go back to the way I taught in the past."

 

"CMP4 is about helping any/every child learn to think, reason, connect, communicate, and collaborate about mathematics every single day… It is purposely designed so that ANY/EVERY child can have access to and success with on-grade level tasks day after day, lesson after lesson, unit after unit, and year after year for three years."

 

"The engagement of students is unmatched. The initial challenge hooks kids and makes them interested in what we are learning, then the situations help challenge them. At the end of each investigation, they are able to reflect on their learning."

 

"CMP4 has helped develop my students into problem solvers. They work together to solve real world problems and discuss their strategies with each other. This is so essential for their ability to critically think and solve problems in the real world."

 

"My message to anyone wanting to teach mathematics in America would be to give CMP4 a try and reflect deeply on how it impacts YOUR understanding of mathematics while also paying the exact same amount of attention to how much it impacts the understanding of mathematics of your students."