The Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice asks students to look for and make use of structure. Hence, mathematics teacher educators need to prepare teachers to support students’ structural reasoning. In this article, we present tasks and rubrics designed and validated to characterize teachers’ structural reasoning for the purposes of professional development. Initially, tasks were designed and improved using interviews and small pilot studies. Next, we gave written structure tasks to over 600 teachers in two countries and developed and validated rubrics to categorize responses. Our work contributes to the preparation and support of mathematics teachers as they develop their own structural reasoning and their ability to help students develop structural reasoning.
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Stacy Musgrave, Cameron Byerley, Neil Hatfield, Surani Joshua, and Hyunkyoung Yoon
Taylee Nelson
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.
Arsalan Wares and David Custer
This pattern-related problem, appropriate for high school students, involves spatial visualization, promotes geometric and algebraic thinking, and relies on a no-cost computer software program.
Melissa Gunter
Asking students to write meaningfully about mathematics can be daunting! Help students learn to write with purpose.
Karen Zwanch and Bridget Broome
This game teaches algebraic generalizations through differentiated play in pairs, small groups, or as a whole class and uses manipulatives to bridge numerical and algebraic thinking.
T. Royce Olarte and Sarah A. Roberts
Teachers can implement a mathematics language routine within in-person/hybrid and remote instructional contexts.
Dana L. Grosser-Clarkson and Joanna S. Hung
This Perspectives on Practice manuscript focuses on an innovation associated with “Engaging Teachers in the Powerful Combination of Mathematical Modeling and Social Justice: The Flint Water Task” from Volume 7, Issue 2 of MTE. The Flint Water Task has shown great promise in achieving the dual goals of exploring mathematical modeling while building awareness of social justice issues. This Perspectives on Practice article focuses on two adaptations of the task—gallery walks and What I Know, What I Wonder, What I Learned (KWL) charts—that we have found to enhance these learning opportunities. We found that the inclusion of a gallery walk supported our students in the development of their mathematical modeling skills by enhancing both the mathematical analyses of the models and the unpacking of assumptions. The KWL chart helps students document their increase in knowledge of the social justice issues surrounding the water crisis. Using the mathematical modeling cycle to explore social justice issues allows instructors to bring humanity into the mathematics classroom.
Sandra J. Miles
This lesson uses the pH scale to build students’ understanding of the additive identity and inverse. It also gives suggestions for how to extend the lesson to multiplication.
Dorothy Y. White
Use this activity to support students in working together, recognizing one another’s contributions, and leveraging their mathematical strengths to solve challenging problems.
S. Asli Özgün-Koca, Kelly Hagan, Rebecca Robichaux-Davis, and Jennifer M. Bay-Williams
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.
