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Math Know-How

Answers to Your Most Persistent Teaching Issues, Grades 3-5

By: Thomasenia Lott Adams, Joanne LaFramenta

Tackle your most persistent teaching issues. Learn how to engage students in meaningful ways. Increase students’ understanding of key concepts. This book can show how.

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Product Details

Grade Level: PreK-12
ISBN: 9781452282633
Published By: Corwin
Year: 2013
Page Count: 208
Publication date: December 10, 2013

Price: $32.95

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Description

From two math coaches who really know how
Have you ever wished there were a single resource to help you tackle your most persistent teaching issues once and for all? To engage students in more meaningful ways? To provide the tools you need to increase students’ understanding of key mathematical concepts? All at the same time! Math coaches Thomasenia Lott Adams and Joanne LaFramenta have just written it.

Written especially for grade 3-5 teachers, Math Know-How is organized around real questions Adams and LaFramenta have fielded from real teachers—questions that have remained remarkably consistent across the hundreds of educators they have advised . Now these two coaches share their hard-won wisdom with you, including how to

Employ strategies to connect instruction to the CCSS, especially the Mathematical Practices
Negotiate the wide range of lesson planning and instructional choices
Catch up when you fall behind your pacing guide
Explore the myriad possibilities for exploiting technology in the classroom
Engage students with diverse learning needs

Read this book cover to cover and start asking and answering questions of your own about your teaching practice.

“As we shift from individual standards to the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, this book will be a valuable resource in establishing strategies and instructional techniques to better equip teachers for the overwhelming transition.”
—Nena Mathews, Math/Science Teacher, Florence, SC

Key features

Provides a brief primer for teachers on the CCSS for math and teaching strategies related to the CCSS Mathematical Practices
Includes a chapter on "Making Mathematics Teaching Decisions" that helps teachers negotiate the range of choices they have in planning lessons and instructing their students
Provides mathematics pacing guides for teachers—complete with dates and timelines to ensure student readiness for benchmark and summative evaluations
Provides guidance for teachers on how to implement differentiated instructional strategies to empower even the most diverse group of student learners
Covers the structural aspects of planning for mathematics instruction and the basics of selecting, using, and managing instructional supports for hands-on learning
Explores the myriad possibilities for using technology in the classroom, for everything from simulations to independent study
Includes a full chapter devoted to the topic of reflecting on one's teaching practice and adapting instruction based on information gleaned from classroom experience
Provides coverage of teaching methods that respond to multiple intelligences and use all modalities to affect and encourage each student as an individual
Explains the many types of assessments and high stakes tests teachers will encounter and guides them through the process of crafting standards-based instruction aligned to the assessment of that instruction
Presents interviews from five mathematics coaches that include expert advice on key concerns and questions from math teachers in the field

Author(s)

Thomasenia Lott Adams

Thomasenia Lott Adams, PhD, is a mathematics teacher educator/researcher in the School of Teaching & Learning and the Associate Dean of Research (ADR) in the College of Education at the University of Florida (UF), Gainesville, FL. Dr. Adams’ scholarship includes funded grants at the national and state levels, including her role as Co-Principal Investigator on the Florida STEM Teacher Induction and Professional Support Center funded by the Florida Department of Education and the UF Noyce Scholars Program: Raising STEM EduGators funded by the National Science Foundation. She has a commendable lists of publications and conference presentations is a senior author of the Go Math! elementary mathematics textbook series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She is also author on several publications of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and Solutions Tree.

Service posts to her credit include editor of the Mathematical Roots Department in Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School and co-editor of Investigations Department of Teaching Children Mathematics both published by NCTM. Dr. Adams has also served as board member of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators board member of the School Science and Mathematics Association and past president of the Florida Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators.

Dr. Adams is a previous recipient of the Mary L. Collins Teacher Educator of the Year Award for the Florida Association of Teacher Educators. She has participated in major efforts to improve teaching and learning of mathematics, including serving as a mathematics coach across grades K-12, being co-author of K-12 mathematics professional development programs and leader for the mathematics and science job-embedded professional development and graduate degree program for middle and high school teachers. She is also an accomplished mentor of mathematics education doctoral students.

She received a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from South Carolina State College, a Master of Education and Doctorate of Philosophy in Instruction & Curriculum from UF in 1990 and 1993, respectively.

Joanne LaFramenta

Joanne LaFramenta is a retired middle school mathematics teacher with a master’s degree in teaching from the University of Chicago. She taught in public schools for more than thirty years in elementary, middle, and high school, as well as in community college and university levels. Her career as a teacher of middle school mathematics began in 1985, in California as the state began an ambitious program of reform, an effort to improve both mathematics teaching and learning. She is a National Board Certified Teacher of Early Adolescence/Mathematics. She graduated from the University of Florida in the summer of 2011, with a degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Curriculum and Instruction, emphasis in mathematics education. She now serves as a research associate and adjunct instructor at the University of Florida.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

1. Common Core State Standards for Mathematics: Mathematics Content and Mathematical Practices

Creating the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics

Theoretical Basis of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics

Structure of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics

Two Brief Notes

Summary

Questions and Tasks for Reflection

2. Making Mathematics Teaching Decisions

Learning: The Primary Purpose of School and the Primary Goal of Teaching

The Nature of Learning

Formative Assessment: Discovering the Prior Knowledge

Types of Formative Assessment Practices

Making the Decisions of Teaching

Summary

Questions and Tasks for Reflection

3. Using the Pacing Guide Effectively

Pacing Guides for Mathematics Instruction

Role of the Mathematics Pacing Guide

How Do Mathematics Standards Influence the Pacing Guide?

Pacing and Mastery

Summary

Questions and Tasks for Reflection

4. Approach to Planning Mathematics Instruction

Perspective: Mathematics Content

Perspective: Models of Instruction

4-A Way to Mathematical Success

Overarching Instructional Strategies

Summary

Questions and Tasks for Reflection

5. Facilitating Differentiated Instruction

Introduction to Differentiated Instruction

Specific Points About Differentiated Instruction

Summary

Questions and Tasks for Reflection

6. Teaching and Learning Mathematics With Manipulatives

Young Students Learn Best When Mathematics Is Linked to a Real-World Context

Selection of Manipulatives

Use of Manipulatives

Tools in the Practice Standards

Summary

Questions and Tasks for Reflection

7. Appropriate Use of Technology

Technology in the Classrooms

Technology for the Learner

Effective Implementation in the Classroom

Evaluating the Use of the Technology

Technology for the Teacher

Summary

Questions and Tasks for Reflection

8. Reflecting on the Teaching Practice of Mathematics

What Is Reflection on Teaching?

Connecting Anticipations and Results

Measuring the Outcomes

The Formal Reflection Process

Summary

Questions and Tasks for Reflection

9. Understanding the Learner

The Expectations From the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI)

The Special Case of Gloria Jean Merriex

Culturally Responsive Teaching

Summary

Questions and Tasks for Reflection

10. Mathematics Assessment 101

Introduction

Summative Assessment

Authentic Assessment

Summary

Questions and Tasks for Reflection

11. Conclusion

All Eyes on Mathematics Education

Appendix: Resources for Teachers

References

Index

Reviews

"Math Know-How is a useful resource that underlines best practices for effective mathematics instruction. In a responsive way, the authors made a necessary contribution to help teachers understand how to help develop students' mathematics thinking. The book will be helpful to new and experienced elementary teachers of mathematics."

Dr. Diana Elysee, Assistant Principal
Webster Elementary School, Webster, FL

"As we shift from our individual state standards to Common Core State Standards for mathematics, this book will be a valuable resource in establishing strategies and instructional techniques to better equip teachers for the overwhelming transition for teaching mathematics with a new way of thinking. As a master teacher, it will be a resource that I will turn to for mentoring teachers."

Nena Matthews, 5th Grade Math and Science Teacher
Lee Central Middle School, Bishopville, SC

"This resource is a compendium of research-based ideas, tools, and insights that provide teachers, as ever-emerging professionals, the ammunition needed to formulate and implement strategies for success in the mathematics classroom. The material is presented in such a way as to offer pragmatic overviews in digestible chapters that paint a mosaic of the multitude of issues that teachers must face for effective and efficient learning environments. The author engages the reader in reflective questioning – avoiding the notion that effective teaching “just happens” – and instead, providing a view that this is a profession that demands study and dedicated and informed effort to assist students in understanding the richness and beauty that can be found in mathematics."

William R. Speer, Director
Mathematics Learning Center, University of Nevada Las Vegas

Other Titles in: Mathematics | Teaching Methods & Learning Styles | Differentiation & Multiple Intelligences

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