NIM is a wonderful mathematics strategy game that has been around forever. At its most basic version, two players alternate turns taking objects from one or more piles. For each turn, a player removes at least one object. The winner of the game is the player who picks up the last object. Whenever I need […]
At the start of the school year, I came across this tweet by @MathEqualsLove… This Week’s Puzzle: Equilateral Triangle. This puzzle is always a favorite! https://t.co/tPyH2w2spF #mtbos #iteachmath #teach180 #puzzlingclassroom pic.twitter.com/8Se6RJJepj — Sarah Carter (@mathequalslove) August 26, 2019 I loved the Equilateral Puzzle, so I finally got around to sharing it with teachers during a […]
We have long known that the most important aspect of schooling affecting student achievement is the effectiveness of the teacher in the classroom (Wright, Horn, & Sanders, 1997). So then, what exactly do effective teachers do? Two well-known people, Hattie and Marzano, have long thought about this very question. Both have created long laundry lists […]
Here are the past problems posted for #TapeDiagramTuesday during the 2019-2020 school year! September 10, 2019 September 17, 2019 September 24, 2019 October 1, 2019 October 8, 2019 October 15, 2019 October 22, 2019 October 29, 2019 November 5, 2019 November 12, 2019 November 19, 2019 November 26, 2019 December 3, 2019 December 10, 2019 […]
2023-2024 Archive problems 2022-2023 Archive problems 2021-2022 Archive problems 2020-2021 Archive problems Word problems. Ugh! How often have you heard that in your classroom. Heck…I certainly heard it uttered numerous times in my own classroom. In fact, there are many times in which I was the one doing the complaining. Oh, how I wish […]
I recently was hanging out with some 6th grade teachers and, as often happens with teachers, we began talking shop. “Fractions…ugh”, said one teacher. “I’m getting into dividing fractions. I don’t know how to explain it to my kids any better than KEEP-CHANGE-FLIP”, she confessed. “I don’t teach that algorithm, because it never makes sense […]
I recently visited a 3rd grade class to share with the teacher ideas for teaching multiplication facts. She was particularly frustrated that her students were struggling with the larger facts – the sixes, sevens, eights, and nines. It was clear that while students had experience connecting multiplication with the idea of equal groups, students did […]
Updated 5/6/2025: Added information about recent NCTQ report. Teachers matter. Good teaching matters. In this week of Teacher Appreciation, I am reminded of an experience many years ago… After school one day, I wandered into the classroom of a new teacher to check how her day went. I saw this on her chalkboard… After […]
Imagine a golf coach who never plays golf. An English Literature teacher who doesn’t enjoy reading books. A lifeguard who can’t swim. Pretty absurd, right? Now imagine a math teacher who doesn’t do math. Unfortunately, this is often the case. Now I’m not talking about the math in the textbook. Of course, math teachers do […]
When I teach new mathematical concepts to my students, I always try to use some sort of visual model to make the learning easier. No duh! But what I have noticed is that over the years I have collected an odd assortment of models to teach everything without any theme to all the models. The […]