Topic: Mathematics

Today on the Heinemann podcast we’re speaking with author Steve Leinwand. Steve’s work revolves around fostering authentic math fluency in students.

Today on the podcast we’re joined by Amy Lucenta and Grace Kelemanik. Amy and Grace are co-authors of Routines for Reasoning: Fostering the Mathematical Practices in All Students.

We confer with our students in reading and writing, but why isn’t it as common in math?

Teachers play a vital role in building students’ number sense and fluency with number combinations.

Meaningful and effective learning of number facts involves three phases. Let's consider each in turn.

Learning these facts is not about rote memorization. Seeing and using patterns, and building relationships, can free children’s cognitive resources to be used in other tasks.

What does it really take to help students learn their math facts in ways that allow them to access and use these facts fluently and flexibly to solve rich and challenging math problems?

The more opportunities students have to practice using the language of mathematics through conversation, the deeper their understanding will be. As students engage in brief discussion, they have the chance to hear and practice providing explanations, multiple representations, and solutions.

Conferring is built on learning what students are doing and how they are thinking. In the first stage of a math conference, the teachers looks, listens, and asks with the goal of building an interpretation of student thinking.

How does a conference work? What do teachers think about? What do they say? A conference is not simply a venue for students to report on their thinking. A conference is a shared opportunity for teachers and students to learn together in the moment.

Whether before school, embedded in the school day, after school, or at home, games offer engaging, active learning, and meaningful math practice. Here are some quick tips for successfully implementing math games!

Struggle is how we learn. Rich tasks provoke productive struggle, during which students actively struggle through a problem as they work to make sense of it.

Understanding what the whole is, what the parts are, how they are related, and what might be missing in a particular problem are all critical aspects of numerical fluency.

Math has moved on: now, instead of merely memorizing multiplication tables, students are expected to know what multiplication means and use more than one strategy to solve, then explain their thinking to peers and teachers. Let’s talk about why that is and how parents can help.

Just as conferring is one part of the readers’ and writers’ workshop and could not be implemented in isolation, conferring in mathematics must take place on a broader instructional stage. But if tasks in the classroom don’t demand deep thinking, we’re left with thin conversations about answers.

There are six identifiable processes that support the development of numerical fluency. these processes are not unique to numerical fluency−in fact, the same processes are essential for the development of spatial sense, algebraic reasoning, and other big ideas in mathematics.

There is a pervasive belief in our culture that being good at math is an innate ability. As teachers, we need to reinforce a growth mindset in our students. Here's where you can start...

There is an unacceptable chasm between traditional mathematics instruction, that rarely works for more than one-third on our students, and this kind of mathematics instruction, that truly empowers nearly all students.