This hands-on task, featuring differentiation and open-ended learning, sets up students to discover area models for themselves. Organized around NCTM’s eight teaching practices from Principles to Actions, this article describes the task’s setup and implementation.
Corinne Thatcher Day
Katherine Baker, Scott A. Morrison, and Alyssa Herrmann
This article features a third-grade multiplication exploration that integrates materials from nature and outside spaces. Teaching and learning mathematics with and in nature foster connections—mathematical, interpersonal, and with the natural world.
Ear to the Ground features voices from several corners of the mathematics education world.
Rick Anderson and Peter Wiles
Recognizing the complex nature of students’ geometric reasoning, we present guidelines and suggestions for implementing a Guess My Shape minilesson that focuses students’ attention on properties and attributes of geometric shapes.
Gina Kling and Jennifer M. Bay-Williams
Basic fact fluency has always been of interest to elementary school teachers and is particularly relevant because a wide variety of supplementary materials of varying quality exist for this topic. This article unpacks eight common unproductive practices with basic facts instruction and assessment.
This department provides a space for current and past PK–12 teachers of mathematics to connect with other teachers of mathematics through their stories that lend personal and professional support.
Corey Webel and Sheunghyun Yeo
In this article, we share results from a field experience model in which junior-year methods classes were held in an elementary school and preservice teachers (PSTs) worked with a single student (a “Math Buddy") on mathematics for 30 minutes per day. We focus on the development of PSTs’ skills for exploring children’s thinking and the structures and tools that we used to support this development. Data sources include screencast recordings of interactions with Math Buddies and written reflections completed by PSTs. Although the responsiveness of interactions varied across individuals and interactions, in general, PSTs showed improvements in exploring children’s thinking. We share implications of these findings for similar field experience models and for practice-based approaches to teacher education generally.
Linda L. Cooper
Growing Problem Solvers provides four original, related, classroom-ready mathematical tasks, one for each grade band. Together, these tasks illustrate the trajectory of learners’ growth as problem solvers across their years of school mathematics.
Amanda K. Riske, Catherine E. Cullicott, Amanda Mohammad Mirzaei, Amanda Jansen, and James Middleton
We introduce the Into Math Graph tool, which students use to graph how “into" mathematics they are over time. Using this tool can help teachers foster conversations with students and design experiences that focus on engagement from the student’s perspective.