Close to ten years ago, while serving as President of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) I wrote a President’s Message that was entitled “Go Ahead, Teach to the Test!” I had very deliberately chosen the title of my message to “grab” readers,
How do we give our students a present without telling them what it is before they open it? Often when we tell our students what they are going to learn at the beginning of the lesson, I feel that we are telling them what the present
Each fall teachers struggle with how to support parents who are helping their children with math homework. When conducting back-to-school meetings with parents, teachers typically summarize the math curriculum by course content. Sometimes, teachers will hand out a list of resources, study aids, and games
The Japanese Footbridge, by Claude Monet. Public domain, image obtained from Wikimedia Commons at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1920-22_Claude_Monet_The_Japanese_Footbridge_MOMA_NY_anagoria.JPG Modeling with Mathematics Claude Monet was one of the founders of the art movement known as Impressionism. Artwork prior to this period in the late 19th century was primarily representational or narrative;
One of the Mathematics Teaching Practices from National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM, 2014) is: Establish mathematics goals to focus learning. Effective teaching of mathematics establishes clear goals for the mathematics that students are learning, situates goals within learning progressions, and uses goals to guide
I cannot remember a time when teachers were pleased with their school’s record of success with mathematics fluency. Individual teachers may have been pleased, but there was no system in place for school-wide success. Three of the major problems with mathematics fluency can be solved by
One important reason for studying mathematics is to nurture an aptitude for and a confidence in problem solving. To be good at problem solving, one must be able to sort through the unknown, make sense of it, persevere in it, and come away with a
There is a strong correlation between a student’s word knowledge and future academic success. Evidence shows that what students already know about a topic is a reliable predictor of how easy they will learn new information in that topic. Words are the tools students use
In the renaissance years, an educated person dabbled in all fields of knowledge. By the 20th century, an increasing specialization led to compartmentalization of knowledge. Isolated university departments trickled down to isolated school subjects and now teachers label themselves as “math teachers” or “literacy teachers.” But
Build in structures and routines to help students learn to self-assess their learning against the success criteria In my previous blog post, “Using Formative Assessment to Create Active Learners,” I listed five key practices that teachers can use to help students learn to make use of