Mindset MathematicsVisualizing and Investigating Big Ideas, Grade 4
Engage students in mathematics using growth mindset techniques The most challenging parts of teaching mathematics are engaging students and helping them understand the connections between mathematics concepts. In this volume, you'll find a collection of low floor, high ceiling tasks that will help you do just that, by looking at the big ideas at the fourth-grade level through visualization, play, and investigation. During their work with tens of thousands of teachers, authors Jo Boaler, Jen Munson, and Cathy Williams heard the same message—that they want to incorporate more brain science into their math instruction, but they need guidance in the techniques that work best to get across the concepts they needed to teach. So the authors designed Mindset Mathematics around the principle of active student engagement, with tasks that reflect the latest brain science on learning. Open, creative, and visual math tasks have been shown to improve student test scores, and more importantly change their relationship with mathematics and start believing in their own potential. The tasks in Mindset Mathematics reflect the lessons from brain science that: There is no such thing as a math person - anyone can learn mathematics to high levels. Mistakes, struggle and challenge are the most important times for brain growth. Speed is unimportant in mathematics. Mathematics is a visual and beautiful subject, and our brains want to think visually about mathematics. With engaging questions, open-ended tasks, and four-color visuals that will help kids get excited about mathematics, Mindset Mathematics is organized around nine big ideas which emphasize the connections within the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and can be used with any current curriculum.
Introduction Low Floor, High Ceiling Tasks Youcubed Summer Camp Memorization versus Conceptual Engagement Mathematical Thinking, Reasoning, and Convincing Big Ideas Structure of the Book Activities for Building Norms Encouraging Good Group Work Paper Folding: Learning to Reason, Convince, and Be Skeptical Big Idea 1: Seeing Patterns inside Numbers Visualize: Visualizing Numbers Play: What Could It Be? Investigate: How Flexible Is a Number? Big Idea 2: Building and Designing with Shapes and Angles Visualize: Tile It! Play: Those Crazy Rep-Tiles Investigate: Polyiamonds Big Idea 3: Making and Naming Number Patterns Visualize: Finding Fibonacci Play: Pattern Carnival Investigate: All Hail! Big Idea 4: Units Are a Relationship Visualize: It’s All in the Axes Play: Measure Up Investigate: 10,000 Steps Big Idea 5: Modeling with Unit Fractions Visualize: Perplexing Measures Play: Tangram Designs Investigate: Pixeled Fractions Big Idea 6: Fraction Equivalence Visualize: Painting Pieces Play: Color-Coding Fractions Investigate: Tiling Rectangles Big Idea 7: Illustrating Multiplication and Division Visualize: Visual Proof Play: Cover the Field Investigate: Table Patterns Big Idea 8: Using Operations Flexibly Visualize: How Crowded Is the Crowd? Play: Target 20 Investigate: Supply Parade Big Idea 9: What Is a Decimal? Visualize: Finding the Better Deal Play: Decimals on a Line Investigate: Can You Make It? About the Authors Acknowledgments Index
JO BOALER is a professor of mathematics education at Stanford University and co-founder and faculty director of youcubed. She serves as an advisor to several Silicon Valley companies and is a White House presenter on girls and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). The author of seven books, including Mathematical Mindsets, and numerous research articles, she is a regular contributor to news and radio in the United States and England. JEN MUNSON is a doctoral candidate at Stanford University, a professional developer, and a former classroom teacher. She works with teachers and school leaders across the U.S. to develop responsive, equitable mathematics instruction. CATHY WILLIAMS is the co-founder and the executive director of youcubed at Stanford University. Before working at youcubed she was a high school math teacher and worked in mathematics curriculum and administration at the county and district levels in California.
Engage Your Students in Visual, Creative Explorations of the Big Ideas in Mathematics The Mindset Mathematics series offers a unique, research-based visual approach to exploring the big ideas in mathematics, which is essential to future mathematics success. This hands-on resource is for any teacher who wants to engage their fourth grade students in reasoning and persisting through problems and provides activities that will engage students' interest and show them the many ways that mathematics is important in their lives. During their work with tens of thousands of teachers, authors Jo Boaler, Jen Munson, and Cathy Williams heard the same message: Teachers want to incorporate more brain science into their mathematics instruction, but they need guidance in the techniques that work best to promote learning of mathematics concepts. In this much-needed volume, the authors clearly show what the big ideas are at this grade level, why they are important to know, and how students can best learn those big ideas. Filled with engaging questions, open-ended tasks, and four-color visuals, Mindset Mathematics is designed to be flexible so that it can be used with any current curriculum. All of the activities and tasks include instructions for launching in the classroom, suggestions for facilitating dynamic discussions, and guidance for what to look for in student thinking as it develops.