TITLE: Teaching algebra in a culturally relevant way while fitting Common Core standards
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: I've been assigning algebra textbook and worksheet problems (from the publishers and my own) that look like this:
Simplify the following expressions.

$x^{- 3} y^2$
$c^2 d^{-5}$
$\dfrac{x^{-2}}{y^{-4}}$ 
$\dfrac{5x^2}{y^{-2}}$ 

I don't feel that my students (who come from low income families) are getting the materials. In three weeks the district wants to know if I am teaching the students this content. What is ridiculous is their suggestion to cover "negative integer exponents in 1 day" followed by "rules of exponents in 3 days." The next week they are theoretically supposed to be on "quadratic equations." I want to laugh at the clueless people who made this scheduling and question whether they've ever taught at an inner city school. How do I teach this material in a culturally relevant and engaging way? What teaching practices and materials could I use? I don't know what kind of curriculum is out there for me to use, this is so challenging! I need student engagement and comprehension of the materials.
When I call out random students what happens next at each step I get resentful looks. I've tried appealing to their number sense intuition by looking at patterns, but it only works for some not all students. Obviously something is not working.

REPLY [0 votes]: FWIW, I have some online mathematics exercises / tutorials (autocorrected), ranging from kindergarten to college, at: http://www.public-domain-materials.com/folder-student-exercise-tasks-for-mathematics-language-arts-etc---autocorrected.html
Also, the material is public-domain. You can copy the entire website if you like and alter it to fit your own purposes.
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