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A natural phenomenon like the upcoming solar eclipse offers the perfect opportunity to engage students in productive, relevant STEM discussion that allows them to make connections to real world applications of their classroom math explorations. On August 21st, the world will experience a solar eclipse, also known as “the Super Bowl of the sky.” The…

What would you do if you noticed some of your students doing this? In the book Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (and How to Teach It to Everyone), author Elizabeth Green tells the story of noted mathematics educator and researcher Deborah Loewenberg Ball posing this dilemma to a group of teachers. Dr. Ball’s…

Math Solutions coaching experts met for three days of collaboration at our 2017 Coaching Academy in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania in conjunction with the Math in Focus Institute to collaborate and focus on best coaching practices. We wanted to share a few major principles of effective math coaching that came out of our time together. Here…

Summer is an ideal time for math teachers to engage in reflective professional learning experiences. But how can you make the most of these experiences?

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…

It’s time for another Twitter live chat on number talks! Please join @Math_Solutions for our May #NumberTalksChat on Wednesday, May 31st at 8pm ET/ 5pm PT. Two lucky participants will be randomly selected to receive copies of Sherry Parrish and Ann Dominick’s Number Talks: Whole Number Computation and  Number Talks: Fractions, Decimals, and Percentages. Join us for a…

“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…

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, Mike Gould, Director of Professional Learning, reflects on two teachers who made a difference in his life.

It may surprise your students that many events in history present ways to explore mathematical ideas. In Day-to-Day Math: Activities for Grades 3-6, Susan Ohanian offers thought-provoking math class “openers” using interesting historical events.  Here are a few events to start your classroom investigations into history through a mathematical lense! January 23, 1951 The C102 jetliner makes history,…

April 22nd is Earth Day, and it’s the perfect time to celebrate our planet with some fun math activities! Allow your students to step into the shoes of Eratosthenes, who originally found the measurement for the circumference of the Earth, with “The Librarian Who Measured the Earth”, a fun exploration of circumference. Make sure to check out Farmer’s Math…