Number Talks Build Mathematical Reasoning

Sherry D. Parrish discusses number talks and their use in the math classroom.  She outlines the key components of a number talk as well as giving a few examples.  This article was published in the October 2011 edition of Teaching Children Mathematics.

NCTM -Teaching Children Mathematics

Make Perseverence Your Lesson Focus

Are you looking for ways to keep motivating your students and challenge their approaches to problem-solving? Check out this Teaching Channel video about Perseverence.

Learn Math without Fear

Learn math without fear, Stanford expert says Stanford Professor Jo Boaler says that students most effectively learn "math facts" working on problems that they enjoy, rather than through exercises and drills they fear. Speed pressure, timed testing and blind memorization damage children's experience of math, she says.

Jo Boaler

Questions to Support Math Practice Standards

Are you asking students questions to promote the 8 Math Practice Standards?  Here is a list of questions that  will help promote these math practices.  Each practice standard has a set of questions that align.

Questioning Stems

Asking Effective Questions

"Questioning is a powerful instructional strategy.  Open questions that are related to the big ideas embedded in the curriculum expectations and learning goals will excite student curiosity, provoke critical thinking, elicit reflection and help students construct their own meaning for the mathematics they are studying.  Their responses will help the teacher assess what students know and what the next instructional steps might be.  Developing skills in questioning for understanding and content knowledge evolves over time and like anything else, requires practice.  The payoff is significant in terms of students' conceptual understanding." - Maryland Public Television.

Effective Questions

This article offers excellent prompts for teachers to use with students when working on math problems.

5 Steps to Use Math Tools

The very first sentence from CCSS - Mathematical Practice #5 - Use Appropriate Tools Strategically is "Mathematically proficient students consider the available tools when solving a mathematical problem."  This article gives the teacher suggestions on how to set your classroom up so that students have access to different tools for problem solving.

Math Tools

Free Rice

This website donates  10 grains of rice to the World Food Program for every correct answer.  You can set the level for students.  Although the problems are skill based I think students would like the practice knowing that correct answers help feed hungry people.

Free Rice