October 31, 2014
In this TED Talk, you’ll hear from Angela Lee Duckworth, the psychologist who coined the term "grit." She discusses her research and offers some brief ideas on how to motivate kids to be gritty.
Counting in sets of ten is a skill that we develop and internalize at a very young age. However, surprisingly, there are dozens of different counting systems, many still in use today. Understanding and exploring…
Voices for Illinois Children recently highlighted the work of the Early Math Collaborative in It All Adds Up: Early Math Initiatives in Illinois. Early childhood learning in the United States is behind where many feel…
When teaching students math, we often do so in a way that doesn't help them make sense of the subject. We teach the steps to take to get an answer, rather helping them understand why…
While many believe that students learn math on a straight-forward, linear path, they actually pull ideas from many different sources when completing a problem. The challenge for the teacher, then, is to take these students,…
Phil Daro explains that the main cause behind the United States' lagging academic performance, particularly in math education, is not the students, the teachers, or the schools, but rather the curriculum, specifically in its attempt…
This article focuses on the importance of creating math images, computer-generated or in the real world, that depict what students are learning. This would create some much-needed context for a topic that can easily become…
This blog post provides some great ideas for first grade Number Talks sessions. These 10-15 minute activities can be centered around the rekenrek or dot cards and are designed to reinforce students’ understanding of number…
The video gives a great overview of how to use a rekenrek. It also provides a few specific examples of problems that you could give to your students.
The Biggest Pumpkin Ever by Steven Kroll and A Pig is Big by Douglas Florian are two children's story books that present opportunities for children to explore the mathematical concept of measurement, particularly the Big…