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Want to learn more? Take the free workshop. All 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th Alg 1 Geom Alg 2 Stat Calc Water Leak Will service arrive in time?Car Ramp How far did the ca…

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Number Sense I Don't Like This Game Anymore: Andrew Stadel

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Andrew Stadel gives a talk called "Number Sense I Don't Like This Game Anymore" at the Math Forum and CMC Ignite event at the 2013 CMC-North conference in Asilomar @mr_stadel http://mr-stadel.blogspot.com/

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Want to learn more? Take the free workshop. All 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th Alg 1 Geom Alg 2 Stat Calc Water Leak Will service arrive in time?Car Ramp How far did the ca…

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ESTIMATION 180 is a place for both students and teachers to enjoy making sense of math and develop their number sense together.

Pick from over 200 visual estimation tasks that invite all your students to be part of rich math conversations and learning.

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How do I get started? 1 USE THE FREE MATH LESSONS Estimation 180 Tasks 3-Act Tasks 2 SUBSCRIBE Email Newsletter Podcast

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Math Antics | Basic Math Videos and Worksheets

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I think this might help those struggling low bunnies with talking through how they think about math.

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https://whenmathhappens.com/3-act-math/

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https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover

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Project-Based Learning activities offer a different approach to learning in scope and depth. PBL lessons are intended to build upon your previous knowledge and offer a unique opportunity to utilize it. Try to work with your teammates through any unexpected difficulties as they arise. Additionally, you'll often find these problems will stray from mathematics into other disciplines such as Science or Social Studies. This is encouraged and should make the project even more meaningful.

Truly, these activities should expose you to real world problem solving experiences as you rely on the work of others and face deadlines. Project Based Learning situations can provide you with important social skills that you will carry with you into the future.
The duration of these activities may range from days to weeks, or longer. The teacher acts as a facilitator of the exercise, as students work together usually in pairs or small groups. The students may have different roles to fill and gain specific expertise in these team building events. Communicating and planning with your team is an important part of the project.

In real life, problems do not always have clear solutions; there are no answers available in the back of the book. There may be several paths to choose from, each with their own advantages.

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Project-Based Learning activities offer a different approach to learning in scope and depth. PBL lessons are intended to build upon your previous knowledge and offer a unique opportunity to utilize...

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I love math, but I know that I'm unusual. Math anxiety is a rampant problem across the country. Researchers now know that when people with math anxiety encounter numbers, a fear center in the brain lights up - the same fear center that lights up when people see snakes or spiders. Anxiety is not limited to low-achieving students. Many of the undergraduates I teach at Stanford University, some of the most successful students in the nation, are math traumatized. In recent interviews, students have told me that learning math in school was like being on a "hamster wheel" - they felt like they were running and running, without reaching any meaningful destination. A seventh grader told me that math learning was like prison, because his mind felt "locked up."

The problem is the performance culture in our schools, more present in math than in any other subject. Students believe that the purpose of math class is to demonstrate that they can quickly find the answers. An undergraduate recently told me that when she writes down her ideas, even when working alone, she expects someone to judge her. She's unable to think freely because she's afraid of writing something that isn't "smart enough." This kind of thought paralysis is the direct result of our emphasis on performance, which we urgently need to dial back. My research on math learners suggests that when students think they're in class to learn - to explore ideas and think freely - they understand more and achieve at higher levels than when they think the point is to get questions right.

A few years ago I taught a summer math camp for sixth and seventh graders using open, creative, visual math tasks. The students were not judged or graded, and the teachers valued and celebrated mistakes and struggle. At the end of the camp, some students described feeling "mathematically free." One said: "A lot of people think of school as prison - you don't have any freedom. But you have a lot of freedom in math camp. You can run wild, you can pass ideas by each other." For many people, the words "math" and "freedom" can't be put in the same sentence - because they're taught mathematics as a subject of rules, conformity and constant performance.

Most would agree that we want students to feel like their minds can "run wild" with ideas. But so many students experience the opposite feeling. Our grading and testing practices are largely responsible. It's bad enough when students receive grades at the end of each unit or course that tell them how capable they are, but technological advances like digital grade portals have meant that students can see where their grades stand, and when they change, every minute of every day. This has amplified the performance pressure on students. Research has shown that students only have to think they're being graded for their achievement to go down. Math teachers who replace grading with constructive written comments increase student's learning. I know the most freeing comment I give to my Stanford students is this: I am not going to give you a grade for this class. Do this for yourself, for your own learning.

The best mathematicians are often deep, slow thinkers - qualities that run contrary to what students are taught to prioritize and perform: speed. Some people thrive under the pressure to answer speedily in the classroom. Typically it's the fast calculators who've been made to feel superior to others - even though they're doing something that's really not useful or necessary today. I was one of those students myself once, and I also believed that math was all about fast calculation. But even students who are wrongly held up as the best mathematical thinkers suffer as they develop damaging ideas about the subject and about themselves. One of my Stanford students, labeled "gifted" from the first grade, was among her high school's best math students and a frequent competition winner - but she was not happy in school, because she was constantly under pressure. Most high-performers never get a chance to step off the performance hamster wheel. They run and run, never getting any closer to seeing the beauty of math, and when they get to college they continue running, or they give up and choose a different path.

Until we change the way we teach math to emphasize learning and exploration, rather than performance, we'll continue to produce students who describe their math experience as a hamster wheel, or worse, a prison. We'll continue to produce anxious students who experience fear when they see numbers. The performance culture of mathematics has destroyed a vibrant, essential subject for so many people. As schools have worked to encourage a few speedy calculators, they've neglected to teach the kind of creative, quantitative thinking that can open new worlds. If we encourage new generations of students who love learning and love math, we'll raise up kids who are prepared to take their place in society as free, empowered thinkers.

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Math Class Doesn't Work. Here's the Solution

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I love math, but I know that I'm unusual. Math anxiety is a rampant problem across the country. Researchers now know that when people with math anxiety encounter numbers, a fear center in the brain lights up - the same fear center that lights up when people see snakes or spiders.

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Inspirational Math Ideas

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Choose your own maths adventure with our interactive tools that allow you to build a custom playlist of inspirational activities!

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Students don't retain basic skills so they can't apply those skills to real world problems. 

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Students don't retain basic skills so they can't apply those skills to real world problems. 

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How can you incorporate this style into your classroom?

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3 Act Math by Dan Meyer

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Want to learn more? Take the free workshop. All 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th Alg 1 Geom Alg 2 Stat Calc Water Leak Will service arrive in time?Car Ramp How far did the ca…

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Estimation 180...Daily Estimation

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Number Sense I Don't Like This Game Anymore: Andrew Stadel

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Andrew Stadel gives a talk called "Number Sense I Don't Like This Game Anymore" at the Math Forum and CMC Ignite event at the 2013 CMC-North conference in Asilomar @mr_stadel http://mr-stadel.blogspot.com/

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What is your "take away" from Jo Boaler?

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From Stanford Online's "How To Learn Math for Teachers and Parents": Number Talks

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Uploaded by Youcubed at Stanford on 2014-08-01.

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What did you notice about number sense within the Mathematical Practice Standards?

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Fluency without Fear

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Visual Mathematics

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Teaching Channel

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Math.Practice.MP1

Common core State Standards

Math: Math

Practice: Mathematical Practice Standards

MP1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

Mathematically proficient students start by explaining to themselves the meaning of a problem and looking for entry points to its solution. They analyze givens, constraints, relationships, and goals. They make conjectures about the form and meaning of the solution and plan a solution pathway rather than simply jumping into a solution attempt. They consider analogous problems, and try special cases and simpler forms of the original problem in order to gain insight into its solution. They monitor and evaluate their progress and change course if necessary. Older students might, depending on the context of the problem, transform algebraic expressions or change the viewing window on their graphing calculator to get the information they need. Mathematically proficient students can explain correspondences between equations, verbal descriptions, tables, and graphs or draw diagrams of important features and relationships, graph data, and search for regularity or trends. Younger students might rely on using concrete objects or pictures to help conceptualize and solve a problem. Mathematically proficient students check their answers to problems using a different method, and they continually ask themselves, \"Does this make sense?\" They can understand the approaches of others to solving complex problems and identify correspondences between different approaches.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

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Math.Practice.MP4

Common core State Standards

Math: Math

Practice: Mathematical Practice Standards

MP4: Model with mathematics.

Mathematically proficient students can apply the mathematics they know to solve problems arising in everyday life, society, and the workplace. In early grades, this might be as simple as writing an addition equation to describe a situation. In middle grades, a student might apply proportional reasoning to plan a school event or analyze a problem in the community. By high school, a student might use geometry to solve a design problem or use a function to describe how one quantity of interest depends on another. Mathematically proficient students who can apply what they know are comfortable making assumptions and approximations to simplify a complicated situation, realizing that these may need revision later. They are able to identify important quantities in a practical situation and map their relationships using such tools as diagrams, two-way tables, graphs, flowcharts and formulas. They can analyze those relationships mathematically to draw conclusions. They routinely interpret their mathematical results in the context of the situation and reflect on whether the results make sense, possibly improving the model if it has not served its purpose.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

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Common core State Standards

Math: Math

K: Kindergarten

OA: Operations & Algebraic Thinking

A: Understand addition, and understand subtraction

1:
Represent addition and subtraction with objects, fingers, mental images, drawings, sounds (e.g., claps), acting out situations, verbal explanations, expressions, or equations.

Drawings need not show details, but should show the mathematics in the problem. (This applies wherever drawings are mentioned in the Standards.)

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

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Common core State Standards

Math: Math

K: Kindergarten

OA: Operations & Algebraic Thinking

A: Understand addition, and understand subtraction

2:
Solve addition and subtraction word problems, and add and subtract within 10, e.g., by using objects or drawings to represent the problem.

Drawings need not show details, but should show the mathematics in the problem. (This applies wherever drawings are mentioned in the Standards.)

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

Thought starters

1. What is the purpose of Act 1?

2. In Act 2, how do you see students approaching the problem? How are their strategies similar and different?

3. How does Ms. Alfonzo reflect on her students' learning?

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Kindergarteners in Kristin Alfonzo's class participate in a three-act task about birthday cake candles. Students begin by watching a video and wondering about the candles. They then model how to figure out how many candles there are before sharing their strategies with the class.

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Select a question below to reflect upon:

Based on what you researched today, what would you like to learn more about in the future?

Is there anything that you want to share that you are currently doing in your classroom?

How would you utilize today's session to enhance your mathematical practice?