3-Act Tasks, 6-8, Estimation, Fractions, Intellectual Need, Math Progressions, Modeling, Teacher Content
A while back I shared a kindergarten lesson and I was really happy with the way it turned out. The 5th-grade lesson below, not so much. The students did great but there are definitely some things I need to improve. We recently finished up a district PL where we used...
6-8, Against the Norm, Fractions, Making Math Accessible, Making Sense Series, Math Progressions, Math Tools, Strategy Development, Teacher Content
It’s our fault. We have no one to blame but ourselves. We unknowing pigeonhole student thinking with the manipulatives we use. Take fraction tiles for example. Much to my disappointment, they come with labels and it kills me. Manipulatives that come pre-labelled...
6-8, Against the Norm, Fractions, Making Sense Series, Math Progressions, Number Sense, Planning, Strategy Development
As elementary teachers, we rarely have the opportunity to explore division of a fraction by a fraction. When we do, it’s normally accompanied with Keep-Change-Flip or the saying “Yours is not the reason why, just invert and multiply.” Both are...
3-Act Tasks, 6-8, Against the Norm, Cheese Mover, Intellectual Need, Measurement and Data, Modeling
This robs students of everything mathematics should be… The “real world” connection The step-by-step procedure Circle the numbers you need to solve the problem The pseudo-context word problem. Lesson 19.2 infers that this unit is front-end load with...
6-8, Against the Norm, Making Math Accessible, Making Sense Series, Math Progressions, Math Tools, Number Sense, Planning, Strategy Development, Teacher Content
Last month I posted The Progression of Multiplication hoping that a couple of friends and parents would find it helpful. Well, here’s my stab at the progression of division. I understand that there’s lots of ways to model division and this is only ONE of...
3-Act Tasks, 6-8, Intellectual Need, K-2, Making Math Accessible, Modeling, Patient Problem Solving, SMPs, Teacher Content, Teaching in a Context
Dan Meyer’s work on mathematical modeling has been instrumental in shaping my own understanding. I’m super thankful for Dan’s commitment to SMP #4 over the years. So when he recently posted that he was shifting gears, I was bummed. It was like the...
