Math Techbook adds real-world context to everyday math concepts and transforms traditional math problems into relatable and relevant problems worth solving. It combines conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and application to help all students develop a long-lasting mastery of mathematics.
Step 1: Log into Discovery Education
Navigate to discoveryeducation.com, discoveryeducation.ca (Canada), or your custom URL. Enter your username and password and Sign in. Not sure how to log in? Use the Search My School feature to log in.
Step 2: Access Math Techbook
Once you are logged in, Math Techbook can be accessed from the grid navigation or from My Resources at the bottom of the Student Homepage.
Alternatively, teachers can assign specific pages or resources from Math Techbook. These will appear at the top of the student’s homepage. Click on any of these assignments to go directly to that page or resource within Math Techbook.
Step 3: Navigate to a Course
Math Techbook opens to the last course the students accessed. If necessary, they can change the course from the dropdown at the top.
Math Techbook is organized and described using the following vocabulary:
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Course: overall course of study in an academic area
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Unit: thematic groupings of learning concepts
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Concept: individual topics of study
On the course page, students have two views available to them:
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Math Techbook Overview, the default view, is a browse-enabled, visual grid.
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Table of Contents view provides a more linear, book-like navigation.
Step 4: Navigate Math Techbook
Students can navigate to the Unit page by clicking View Unit to see an overview of the concepts in this unit as well as any projects or unit openers (this varies from concept to concept).
Once a student navigates into a concept, they will see that the Math Techbook is written based on the Discover-Practice-Apply Model.
The first phase of the instructional cycle, Discover, includes scenarios relevant to the concept being learned. Students are exposed to a rich set of investigations that enable them to:
- actively explore each scenario,
- develop mathematical models,
- make and test conjectures, and
- solidify their own understanding.
Students also develop solutions for problems that appear within the Discover section using what they’ve previously learned or discovered. Within each concept, students encounter multiple problems of increasing complexity based on the conceptual learning target. The problems include a blend of online and hands-on investigations.
The Practice phase of the instructional cycle develops procedural fluency and reinforces concepts. After demonstrating understanding within Discover, students move to Practice, which offers two types of support: Coach and Play. With Coach, students get direct feedback on their constructed responses. In this guided pathway, students practice solving exercises similar to those that were solved in Discover. Play provides independent practice. It consists of exercises through which students practice at their own pace based on the current concept about which they are learning. Unlike in the Coach exercises, students in the Play segment are on their own to complete assignments, and they receive no support on how to answer questions correctly.
In Apply, the final phase of the learning cycle, students are given several contextual problems in which they must independently apply what they have learned during Discover and practiced through Practice. Students are often required to research a topic, and then use their research to construct a mathematical model, pose a solution, and justify their work. Some problems are machine-scored, and students receive feedback on their responses from the computer; others use a digital rubric to allow for easy online scoring by the teacher, and teachers can enter personalized feedback when scoring student responses.
Step 5: Explore Math Techbook Tools
With Core Interactive Text, Math Techbook text can be read aloud, highlighted, or annotated with sticky notes. Select any text in and a reader tool will appear.
Select Speak Text to have the text read aloud. To adjust speed, volume, or to have words highlighted as they are spoken, open Settings.
Select the text and then choose Highlight to highlight words or phrases in selected colors. Choose Take Notes to highlight the words and create open-text notes about the words or phrases. Highlights and Notes are specific to each user and will only clear if deleted. To view notes associated with highlighted text, select the highlighted text and choose View Notes, or choose Notebook from the toolbar to see notes organized by concept, unit, and course.
Key academic terms in Math Techbook are linked to the Glossary. The Glossary can also be launched anytime from the toolbar.
Each term includes an animation that helps describe the term, details that include a definition and key context sentences for the term, a video segment, images or diagrams.
Definitions and key context statements are provided in both English and Spanish. Interactive Glossary terms are embedded throughout the Math Techbook or they also can be found through the general keyword search.
The Math Techbook Glossary also includes the Immersive Reader functionality. Click the icon to open Immersive Reader which opens up many accessibility options, such as:
- Read aloud text
- Access a picture dictionary for words
- Translate text to over 60 languages
- Change the size, style, and color of the text
- Use a line focus tool while reading
- Highlight the grammar throughout the text
Learn more about Immersive Reader.
The toolbar is located on the right side of the screen.
Here, students can access:
Language - choose between English or Spanish
Resources -
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Concept Dashboard - access formative assessment data for the concept
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Glossary - access key academic vocabulary found within the concept with a definition, key context sentences for the term, images or diagrams, an animation that helps describe the term, and a video segment discussing the term.
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My Notebook - highlight important concepts or vocabulary, then the interactive text automatically adds to the interactive notebook. Add new or additional notes, and the notebook saves and organizes it by course, unit, and concept.
Actions - share this concept with another student or add this concept to My Content or Favorites for easy access later
Print Options - get a printer-friendly version of the page for printing or saving as PDF for offline access. Choose to print the page, all pages within the tab, or all tabs within the concept.
Tools - various tools are available to students to support learning in Techbook. These tools are optimized by grade level to support student learning across different skill levels. All students have access to the whiteboard and calculator. Older students will also have access to the graphing calculator, scientific calculator, and unit converter.
- Learn more about the Whiteboard (Canadian Subscribers).
- Learn more about the Graphing Calculator (Canadian Subscribers).
Step 6: Explore Resources & Answer Questions
In addition to the Core Interactive Text, students will also be able to engage with other types of resources - including videos, images, text passages, and interactives. Students can play the videos and click around the interactives from within Math Techbook to support deeper learning of the concept.
Additionally, students will come across Technology-Enhanced Items. These are prompts to check for student understanding. Some may ask the student to type an answer in the box while others may include matching, ordering, etc. Students can save their progress on these items, however, in order for your teachers to see your answers, you must click Submit. Students can also attach files to the open-ended items, allowing them to submit a drawing or file created in another program.
Step 7: View Your Progress
The Results icon in the toolbar will launch the Concept Dashboard. This gives the students the opportunity to track their progress in a concept and see their results.
Students can switch between the tabs of the concept in the dropdown at the top. They can click on any score to look at the details - whether they want to see how they answered or how the teacher graded it (if it wasn’t auto-scored).
