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Once students have mastered addition and subtraction, they get to move on to bigger equations: multiplication. Many adults recall days spent memorizing tables and writing out their work, but you can take an approach that doesn’t require merely committing numbers to memory. Help your students really understand what multiplication is and how it works by…

“I don’t know how to help my child with math homework! I don’t know these new ways of doing math.” We hear this often from parents, right? Often along with another hesitant question, “Is it okay to show him/her my way?” In my last blog post, I wrote about how my vision for math teaching…

On the first day of my Mathematics Methods course for preservice teachers, I ask my students to solve the Dealing in Horses Problem from Marilyn Burns’ book About Teaching Mathematics, Fourth Edition: I ask my students to consider the problem individually for a few minutes and then discuss and solve the problem in table groups. I…

Recent research on mathematical mindsets is turning some long-standing beliefs about mathematics learning on their heads. These studies have important implications for classroom teachers and mathematics coaches. What do we want our students to know about mathematical mindsets? Here are three big ideas I recommend discussing, modeling, and cultivating in any mathematics learning setting: Everyone…

Recently I read Matt Larson’s message on homework and reflected on how much my own stance on homework has evolved in the last decade. Initially, I struggled alone with creating homework, photocopying weekly packets, and spending hours checking and tracking what students did. Things improved when I worked with grade-level colleagues to carefully select questions…

We’re thrilled to welcome Kristin Gray, K-5 Math Specialist and author of Math Minds, to the blog today. She recently interviewed Sherry Parrish and Ann Dominick, authors of Number Talks: Fractions, Decimals, & Percentages, about their processes and experience as math educators. Both authors share how their careers in math education inspired their work with number talks,…

An important mathematics concept for children to learn is that all halves of the same whole are the same size. If the whole is divided into different sizes, then they are not halves. While halves of the same shape must be the same size, they do not have to be the same shape. For example,…

by Lainie Schuster and Nancy Canavan Anderson Asking “good” questions—questions that help students make sense of math—lies at the heart of good math teaching. In Good Questions for Math Teaching: Why Ask Them and What to Ask, Grades 5–8 (Math Solutions Publications, 2005), Lainie Schuster and Nancy Anderson provide teachers with questions across seven math strands. The questions…

Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, but some people take it harder than others. Help your students overcome and learn from their mistakes.

Here are tips for creating effective talk-based lessons.