Introducing the Math Makeover Series

It’s summer, but you’re already planning for the year ahead. You envision last year’s students engaged in reading, or happily lost in some writing endeavor. Yet when you think back to math...the movie reel in your head gets fuzzy. This indicates a pretty serious challenge. The 50-90 minutes we devote to math often feel different from language arts time. It’s as though math time doesn’t have a setting, a back story, a big picture theme that helps learners feel rooted in a collaborative, meaningful scene. Stretching the movie analogy a bit farther, math seems stuck in the black-and-white silent film era. In this back-to-school series, we share practical ideas for turning your math minutes into a compelling, engaging learning time. Spoiler alert: it’s all about bringing literacy best practices into math.

Best practices for instruction create child-centered learning environments where students are engaged in doing the work while being challenged to think, discuss, create and reflect alongside their classmates and teacher. Best practices help us create the space where students not only learn the building blocks of math, but become a member of a community engaged in real world math, deeply involved in the work of mathematicians. Yep—just as they read and write like real-world readers and writers. Here’s a sneak peak at the upcoming blogs:

Launching a Year of Meaningful Math: How can we create the time, space, feel, and mindset for a year of exciting and enriching math learning?

Process Over Product: How can we teach thinking strategies so students can apply their learning to virtually any problem, math scenario, or unit of study?

Planning & Prioritizing: How can we make the most of our math planning time?

Balanced Literacy & Balanced Math: What do the components of balanced literacy “look” like in math?

We look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback all along the way!