Teaching Mathematics Meaningfully

Each of you will be assigned a chapter to read, summarize and for which you ill post a reflection. You will then read the posts of the others and respond to each.

The purpose of this activity is to receive an introduction to the teaching concepts addressed in TMM. Specifically, what are characteristics of struggling learners that make meaningful mathematics a challenge and what are strategies that are useful in making mathematics meaningful? We will be returning to this book in the future. It is a very good book.

1. In reading your respective chapter you are to address the following:
• The major points (be judicious in what you choose) - provide enough detail so the others get a full sense of the point
• What are the major take-aways you have for each major point listed
• For the chapter on characteristics of struggling learners, address WHY kids are struggling and how this relates to the teacher's perspective (after all the point of this is to inform your teaching). 
• For the strategies chapters, address WHY the strategies may work and how these strategies relate to your future teaching. How can you make use of these?
• Again, be judicious and be concise. You don't have to provide a full explanation of the whole chapter.
2. In responding to the posts of others, identify a key point made and address how it can or will impact your teaching AND explain your reaction, e.g. are you surprised or is it common sense?

Your initial post is due by Sunday, June 2 at 10PM and your responses to the posts of others is due by Sunday, June 9 10PM.

Here are the chapter assignments:

• Sarah - Chapter 5: "Common Learning Characteristics that Make Mathematics Difficult for Struggling Learners"
• Tiffany - Chapter 8: "Making Instructional Decisions: Determining What and How to Teach
• Charles - Chapter 9: "Teaching for Initial Understanding: Using Effective Instructional Practices"
• Jim - Chapter 10: "Building Proficiency: Using Effective Student Practice Strategies"
• David - Chapter 11: "Planning Effective Mathematics Instruction in a Variety of Educational Environments"
• Neil - Chapter 12: "Using Technology to Promote Access to Mathematics"

Insight for Newbies

The comments were submitted by a previous summer cohort. They were asked to share insight and suggestions for "newbies".

Application Process

It is not to early to start thinking about the application process. Here are some key points to consider.

• Revise your resume to highlight work with students, planning, interaction with people, and teaching or presentations.
• Reflect on the type of job situation that interest you: urban or suburban, middle or high school, grade level, college level or students with special needs and travel time.
• Review different school profiles as you are to do for your classroom observation (link on the classroom observation notes handout).
• Start a file to collect artifacts you would present in an interview as part of a portfolio.
• Start logging reflections, teaching strategies, anecdotes from your experience that you would want to share in an interview and on an application - you want to include specifics in both!
• Be prepared to discuss the following
• How would you handle a wide range of abilities?
• How do you engage students?
• How will Common Core of State Standards (different from Common Core of Teaching) inform your teaching?

References or recommendations

In order to write a meaningful recommendation a reference would have to address effective strategies you have demonstrated in methods and student teaching. If you don't implement what we show you in methods then you aren't showing that you can take input and it is very likely you aren't using effective teaching strategies. In other words, we can't write what an effective teacher you will be if you aren't showing it during ARC.

Here's an anecdote to drive the point home. A recent graduate from ARC Math was asked in an interview how he ensures during a lesson that the students understand the content. He explained that he gives a very short pop quiz and quickly grades it while the students do subsequent classwork. The interviewer responded that this was the best answer he had ever heard to this question. You will hear A LOT about pop quizzes because it is an emphasis in methods. Yet, some candidates DON'T USE THEM!

Another candidate was recently hired after I served as a reference. The assistant principal asked about her strengths and I explained that the candidate was very receptive to input.

I hope you keep all this in mind.

Jonnson's Motivation

Choose a couple main points from this book and explain how they inform your concept of effective teaching.

• Be very concise. Make simple points. Address main ideas as opposed to trying to cover every point made by Johnson.
• Follow the rubric on blog posts.
• Original post is due Sunday, May 19 at 11PM
• Respond to questions posed to you and respond to at least one classmate by Sunday, May 26 11PM.

Johnson's Every Minute Counts

Choose a couple main points from this book and explain how they inform your concept of effective teaching.

• Be very concise. Make simple points. Address main ideas as opposed to trying to cover every point made by Johnson.
• Follow the rubric on blog posts.
• Original post is due Sunday, May 12 at 11PM
• Respond to questions posed to you and respond to at least one classmate by Sunday, May 19 11PM.

Lemov's Teach Like a Champion

Lemov offers 49 techniques for teaching.

The Common Core of Teaching (CCT) articulates the knowledge, skills and qualities that Connecticut teachers need in order to prepare students to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

You are to read the Lemov techniques and identify one CCT indicator (e.g. 1.2 Demonstrating discipline-specific knowledge and skills as described in the relevant national and state professional teaching standards;) that is aligned with each technique. You will do this in two parts.

Part I: for the technique listed below you will post a comment on this blog post listing each technique followed by the code and wording for the indicator (example above). Due Sunday,  May 26 by 11PM. (Ignore the "response requirement" for this assignment.)
Techniques for Part I: 1, 6, 12, 22, 28, 36, 43

Part II: present the rest of the techniques on a WORD document using the Template for Reflections (header). For these you will type the Lemov technique (title and number) followed by the CCT indicator code. You do NOT need to include the sentence for the indicator. E.g. #51 Paint it Pink - 7.3 (I made these up). This will be due June 22 (first day) in methods as a hard copy.

Welcome to ARC

Please post responses to the following by Sunday, April 28, 11PM. To post comments, you can create an account or you can post comments using "anonymous" but be sure to include your name in the comment, e.g. "From Randy:"

• Name


• City/town


• profession you are leaving to enter teaching

• your experience with teaching or working with young people (it is okay if you don't have much experience!!)


• a short blurb about your favorite teacher of all time

• From the Insight for Newbies blog post identify ONE thing that stands out. Be very concise.