Observe a first-grade teacher's use of gesture as a mathematics teaching and learning tool in his classroom.
Tutita M. Casa
This instructional tool helps students engage in discussions that foster student reasoning, then settle on correct mathematics.
M. Katherine Gavin and Karen G. Moylan
Research-based actions and practical ideas for implementation can help shape your differentiated instruction.
Ariel Robinson
This preschool teacher uses differentiation and scaffolding techniques as she reads an informational text about patterns with her young students.
Annie Perkins and Christy Pettis
Students are asked to solve a problem that involves viewing the characteristics of a square.
Claire Riddell
Exploring how many pattern blocks will completely fill the Rocket Ship puzzle, students are challenged to use the most and fewest number of blocks possible. They have the opportunity to explore the composition and decomposition of shapes and generalize ideas about the relationship between the size of the pieces and the number of pieces. Each month, elementary school teachers are presented with a problem along with suggested instructional notes; asked to use the problem in their own classrooms; and encouraged to report solutions, strategies, reflections, and misconceptions to the journal audience.
This department showcases students' in-depth thinking and work on problems previously published in Teaching Children Mathematics. The November 2011 problem scenario has students explore several rich, mathematical ideas, such as square numbers and the commutative property of multiplication.
Katie L. Anderson
Teachers share success stories and ideas that stimulate thinking about the effective use of technology in K–grade 6 classrooms. This article describes a set of lessons where sixth graders use virtual pattern blocks to develop proportional reasoning. Students' work with the virtual manipulatives reveals a variety of creative solutions and promotes active engagement. The author suggests that technology is most effective when coupled with worthwhile mathematical tasks and rich classroom discussions.
Michael Todd Edwards and Suzanne R. Harper
Use photo editing software as a teaching tool to bring inaccessible polygon definitions within reach of your students' understanding.
Johnnie B. Wilson
It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that teaching mathematics should greatly differ from teaching language arts. The subjects are usually scheduled separately in the school day. Classroom teachers at Munich International School in Starnberg, Bavaria, Germany, did not pay much attention to what language means to learning and teaching mathematics—until their geometry students offered language surprises that reminded their teachers how important language is.
