How would you respond if your administrator suggested that mathematics instruction be dropped from the curriculum in the elementary grades? How would the parents of your students respond? Recently I ran across an article in Psychology
1 Comment
A new member has been added to the Endangered Species list; it is the math teacher of yesterday. At a recent conference I asked the attendees to consider how their teaching would change if their students had an app on their smart phones that would solve a math problem and show the steps simply by taking a picture of it. How much of what we do would be suddenly obsolete?
For some reason, math teachers tend to hear, “When are we ever gonna use this?” more than teachers in other content areas. I have often thought about this fact and wondered about the reason for its prevalence in the math classroom. Is math truly something that we don’t use outside of the classroom walls? Is proficiency in math not necessary for success in college? Of course these are questions that we can answer with a resounding, “No.” I suspect that the answer runs deeper than that.
We have been exploring Michael Stallard’s “Six Needs to Thrive at Work” and analyzing how they relate to a student’s success in the classroom. So far we have studied the first four needs: respect, recognition, belonging, and autonomy. This month we will look at the fourth need: personal growth. It was the first week of school and I held up a chessboard in my honors class. “How many squares are on this board?” I asked. One student raised his hand and said there were 64. I asked him how he got the answer. “I multiplied eight times eight.” I asked him to stand up along one wall of the classroom and instructed anyone who agreed to stand with him. About ten students remained in their seats. I asked one of them what he thought. Dear parents,
As we begin a new school year, you have probably heard much about the new Common Core State Standards. Some of what I’m hearing is true, and some is not, so I’d like to dispel some myths about the standards and address concerns you might have. In my early years of teaching math I was faced with the problem of having to fill a few days of class time as we concluded a unit just prior to Christmas vacation. Not wanting to start the new unit, I decided to have the students illustrate their learning by completing a project on the linear functions unit that they had just completed.
“I always did fine at math, until I got to geometry in high school.” The vast majority of people can identify with that statement. However there is a correspondingly vocal minority who responds, “Math never made sense until I got to high school geometry, then I could see it!” For this reason,
A recent issue of the NCTMs Marshall Report included an article by Dingman, Teuscher, Newton, and Kasmer detailing the changes that will be brought by the Common Core
How will instruction change as we move toward implementing the Common Core State Standards for math? The emphasis will not be only on
This is my sixth article on the teaching of number sense. In the previous articles, I discussed the importance of
|
AuthorBrad Fulton is an award winning teacher and nationally recognized provider of professional development with over three decades of experience in education. Categories
All
Archives
December 2017
|
TTT Press |
What our customers are saying:
|
© 2013 by Brad Fulton and TTT Press