When talking about the teaching and learning of mathematics, we often bring our own experiences to the conversation. For example, if you experienced mathematics as an endless list of problems that you had to solve in order to arrive at a single correct answer, that
The importance of mathematics teaching and learning in our schools is hard to overstate. From computational skills to inductive reasoning, mathematics is everywhere in our lives. If only there were a playbook for implementing what works best in mathematics teaching and learning. There is now! As
His mohawk flopped side to side as he pointed rapidly at his scrawling mathematics work. My 6th grader was having a hard time explaining his thought process. “It’s like, I started with this idea, and tried this formula with these numbers, but then the math
Thinking is hard. Teaching students to think is really hard! Modern mathematics standards and curriculum often put an emphasis on mathematical problem solving—frequently described as what you do when you don’t immediately know what to do—which requires a great deal of student thinking. Teachers know that
Three Ways to Keep Student Identities Front and Center in the Mathematics Classroom While our jobs as educators involve teaching content, it is also true and equally important to remember that we teach people. Students come to us with their own history, background, and life experiences
These days, students and teachers are regularly using technology in mathematics classrooms for a variety of purposes: for problem solving, to visualize representations, to model mathematics, to represent data, to collaborate, and to practice procedural fluency and get immediate feedback on their understanding. These technology
Every day, educators strive to implement engaging and meaningful lessons that are relevant to and reflective of the lives and communities of all the students in their classrooms. We see this becoming more and more prevalent, not just in English language arts and history or
WHY? Consider how your students would answer the following questions: During math lessons, how are your ideas about math valued? How does learning math relate to the rest of your life, in and out of school? Students’ responses to these questions can help gauge the sort of
It’s that time of year again when leaders, educators, families, and students head back into the classroom bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready for a chance to “reset” after the past few long years. Our students need us more than ever. Now is the perfect time to
Children enter our classrooms with curiosity: they are curious about themselves, curious about the content, curious about their classmates, and curious about the world. This curiosity can extend to thinking about how students experience and understand issues of fairness, equity, power, and justice in their