by Janaki Nagarajan
How can we best do mathematics together in an online environment?
When school suddenly shifted online last spring, I found myself overwhelmed by the learning curve for new technologies—for both myself and my students. I knew that I wanted to maintain a space centered on students’ collective thinking and understanding.
Continue reading “Facilitating the “Choral Counting” Routine Online”
By William McCallum
I was in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago visiting a school using IM 6–8 Math and was inspired by the efforts the school was making to implement problem-based instruction. I saw teachers at different stages on a learning curve with the instructional routines in the curriculum and realized how important it was to have a learning curve, and not a learning cliff, for teachers to grow into this way of teaching. We have tried to achieve this in many ways in our curriculum.
Continue reading “Learning through Teaching”
We want students to think about math deeply. Creatively. Analytically. Instead, what often happens is that students race towards quick solutions. So what can we do to support this other kind of thinking in class—the slow, deep kind?
By Jenna Laib
One way is through instructional routines like “Which One Doesn’t Belong” and “Notice and Wonder.” These routines give structure to time and interactions. Within the structure, there are opportunities to have time to think deeply and a predictable way to share and deepen thinking with partners and the whole class.
Continue reading “Using Instructional Routines to Inspire Deep Thinking”
How do we invite students to the mathematics, and explicitly signal to kids that they have ideas that matter in math class?
By Max Ray-Riek
In this series of blog posts, the first of which is available here, we’re exploring how, in order to be successful in a problem-based classroom, students have to shift their thinking about what being a good math student looks and sounds like. What do you notice about your own students’ beliefs about how they should participate? What are you curious about now, as you think about what it takes for students to be successful in a problem-based classroom?
Continue reading “Inviting Students to the Mathematics”
Illustrative Mathematics
It was great to see so many of you at NCSM and NCTM in San Diego. If we missed you, or you weren’t able to attend, read our NCSM and NCTM round-up below.
My first years of teaching, I worried my students looked at me much like Ben Stein as the teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I cringe to think about the series of monotonous and leading questions I strung together to a room of dazed students slowly wilting in front of my eyes. “Bueller? Anyone?”
By William McCallum and Kate Nowak
People use routines for all kinds of things. Routines give structure to time and interactions. People like structure. When a child comes home from school, there might be a routine. She expects a snack, homework time, play time, dinner, some television, a bath, pajamas, a book, and to get tucked into bed. She might have responsibilities, like setting the table for dinner, and engage in predictable dialog along the way, like sharing something that happened at school. She might expect her father to sing her a song. (Over and over and over again, in the case of my daughters—Bill.) The routine makes her comfortable and makes necessary chores go smoothly. Continue reading “What is an instructional routine?”
