I recently took a GRE exam as part of my application for a PhD program in Mathematics Education. The exam consisted of several sections, all timed at either 30 or 35 minutes. There were essays, verbal reasoning sections and quantitative reasoning sections. It has been since my undergrad that I’ve written a test and …
Assessment – Harmful or Helpful?
A Math Class Make-Over: A Current Approach to Math Education
The changes in the math curriculum might seem small but they represent a very large philosophical shift. The traditional approach to teaching math has been to focus on procedures. We taught students how to do the math but there wasn’t a big focus on when we would use the math or why the procedures …
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Mathematical Mindsets
I recently finished Jo Boaler’s new book ‘Mathematical Mindsets’ and was, as always, blown away by her work. I learned a lot from the book and as a result am going to create some add-ons to our lesson plans and videos. Firstly, if you haven’t already been using the differentiated tasks that are in …
Dealing with Obstacles (Follow up to ‘Dividing Large Numbers’)
Hello, everyone! I had some great responses from the blog post – Dividing Large Numbers and teachers had some really good questions about dealing with obstacles. So here are some questions and suggestions: Question: What do I say to a student who knows how to do the long division algorithm already? My Suggestion: First, …
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Large Number Division- A Classroom Story
The other day I walked into a grade 6 classroom with my big bin of base 10 blocks and there was a buzz of excitement. Students, who are now accustomed to the style of lessons I generally teach, immediately start clearing their desktops to get ready for their blocks. One girl exclaimed “I love …
