Math Resources for Teachers

It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks! I went on a mini-vacation to a wedding in Nashville, and then I attended a 3-day workshop on The Role of Mathematics in the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme. I think this is the summer of math learning for me! I love attending workshops because I almost always leave with new ideas and new resources to explore. Even if you don't work at an IB school, there were lots of useful resources worth exploring.

(Apologies in advance -- this will be a long post!)

Book Resources

A Mathematical Passage: Strategies for Promoting Inquiry in Grades 4-6

This book was featured because of it's Mathematician's Bill of Rights on p. 139. The Bill of Rights lists the "rights" that all mathematicians have -- things like "solve problems in ways that make sense to me" and "capitalize on mistakes as sites of learning." I'm definitely interested in reading more from this book. I've read other things by David J. Whitin before, and they've been great.

Math Matters: Understanding the Math You Teach Grades K-8

I had a chance to browse this book during the workshop, and it looks like a good one for understanding how to approach math conceptually. May not be the most exciting read in the world (would you look at that front cover?!), but it looks like a very useful book if you're going for an inquiry oriented math classroom.

Good Questions for Math Teaching

This book is great for creating open-ended questions that will really get students thinking about the math involved in problem solving rather than just looking for a specific answer. It uses questioning techniques to develop more sophisticated mathematical thinking, and it has a wealth of information.

Number Talks

I was a little surprised how many teachers at the workshop were already familiar with this book and using it given that I'm usually up on all the latest and greatest math books, but nevertheless, this book had rave reviews. Of all the books that I'm reading this summer, this is the one that I suspect will have the biggest impact on my teaching this August. I've really enjoyed reading it, and I have so many ideas about how I will put it into practice this year. If you haven't gotten it already, I couldn't recommend it more!

Good Questions: Great Ways to Differentiate Mathematics Instruction

I know I've talked about this book before, but we spent a lot of time talking about open questions and parallel tasks at the workshop, so I had to share this book again. I used this book non-stop at the end of the school year, and I loved how it was so perfectly aligned to Common Core in math. It couldn't be more teacher-friendly.

Online Resources

Visible Thinking Routines

I've been introduced to the Visible Thinking Routines from Harvard's Project Zero before, but it was good to be reminded about them. These are some great activities to prompt student discussions and thinking. One example of this is "OTQ - Observe, Think, Question." For this activity, students see a picture and spend a few minutes describing what they see/observe. Anything they observe has to be rooted in the picture and not based on inferences. Step 2 is "Think" - what does this make you think about? This is where students can share their inferences and cite evidence in the picture to support why they think that. Finally, students "question" and share what they wonder about based on the picture. I like that these routines slow down student thinking.

Math Class Needs a Makeover

We watched this video in the workshop, and if you've never seen it, I highly recommend that you take the 10 minutes to watch Dan Meyer's TED Talk. In it, he talks about the problems with current approaches to math instruction -- largely fueled by larger textbooks and math programs -- and how to turn those materials into the types of problems that will challenge your students to become patient problem solvers. I was really inspired by this video, and I hope that you will be, too.

Have a great weekend! I'll be back to blogging more regularly next week!

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