Building the Academic Strength of Our Weakest Students

       School is about learning.  And most students do fine when it comes to learning what they need to learn in school.  For most students, its not a matter of passing or failing; its more a matter of learning very well or not learning so well.  But for some of our students, keeping up-to-speed in their reading, writing, and mathematics skills as they go through their middle and high school years is difficult.  As a public school system, a lot of effort is focused on helping these students to improve their skills.  This is an important mandate in every public school.

       We know from research that students who are below grade level in reading by the end of third grade often struggle with their reading skills throughout the rest of their P-12 schooling experience.  (link to study)  They are also more likely to leave school without a high school diploma.  Difficulties in learning mathematics have been similarly well documented.  Students with weak math skills also struggle in high school mathematics and are less likely to graduate from college (see here; go to chapter 3 on page 45).  It is because of these known consequences that schools make every effort to raise the skills, abilities, and understandings of students who are weak in reading, writing, and mathematics.

       At the heart of this effort is the struggle of understanding how these students think and how they learn.  Clearly, the "usual way" of teaching and learning is not working; and so schools look to other resources and teaching strategies to reach these students.  Understanding the best ways to motivate students to do their best in school (especially when they have experienced only failure in the past) is an important task for schools and teachers.  One excellent resource is the book Mindsets by Carol Dweck.  In it Dr. Dweck explains the psychology of how people perceive their abilities to learn.

       There is no shortage of intervention programs that are available to schools (at a cost) for the purpose of helping students to regain "grade-level" status.  Schools invest in these programs and train their teachers.  Some students show excellent improvement while others do not.  It is a constant challenge to find the best way to help our weakest students.  But it is a challenge that our public schools eagerly accept every day.

       Learning is for everyone and everyone can learn.  Building the skills of our weakest students is an important responsibility of our public schools--one that we take very seriously.

Make Math Meaningful: Math Tasks

       The days of the boring worksheets in math class and the word problems about the train leaving New York are over.

       Well...actually, they're not over.  But they should be over.

       We already know that most students (and adults) do not learn new things very well just by listening to someone explaining it; after which the teacher often says something like, "Does anyone have any questions?"  This is when the students want to say, "How can we have any questions about this?  You just taught it to us one minute ago.  (And then they get a worksheet.)

       This is passive learning.  This learning promotes adherence to procedures and getting-the-right-answer over true learning and understanding.  Some students do fine and some students do not; and it is simply not acceptable to engage in teaching strategies that don't help all of our students.

       Math classes should be places where students are actively engaged in their learning.  Students are presented with a problem or a task and they work in groups to brainstorm ideas based on the objectives that they have been recently learning.  The final answer can be reached via multiple solution methods and (most importantly) the students are using and learning mathematics simultaneously.  Finally, students are able to explain what they are doing (teaching others) which is a way for students to demonstrate their understanding.

       Math Tasks are written to be activities that students can do in small groups in their math classrooms under the direction and supervision of their math teacher.  Math Tasks are meant to take the place of the old 20-problem-worksheets during class time.  Instead of students working quietly and independently, they are working together with other students: learning from each other and sharing their ideas.

       There are many online resources that have wonderful math tasks.  Some of my favorites are:

• Illustrative Mathematics
• Go to Content Standards, then chose a Grade, then chose a Domain, then chose a cluster, then chose a standard and you'll see a list of Math Tasks.
• Mathematics Assessment Project (MAP)
• Click on Tasks and see a list of middle school and high school Math Tasks.
• Inside Mathematics
• Click on Performance Assessment Tasks and chose a grade or course to see a list of Math Tasks

      Math Tasks model the way math is done in the real world.  That's where you are presented with a problem and you have to decide which resources to use to find a path to the answer.  There is more than one way to get the answer and sometimes there is more than one possible answer.  Math Tasks help our students to understand mathematics.

Great Math Resources online

     I’ve just had my 50th birthday and I am completing my 26th year in the education field.  The differences between today and when I began teaching are certainly many.  One of these is the vast amount of great math resources available to teachers online.  Of course, along with the “great” resources, there are also other resources that may (shall we say) fall into the “ho-hum” category.  I would like to offer a few tips for finding great resources online; and then would like to share some of my favorites.

Tips to Find Great Online Resources

1. Does the resource promote and/or encourage student thinking?
2. Is the resource available to students outside of school (web-based)?
3. Does the resource do more than what can be done with the resources you have in your school?
4. Is the resource engaging for students?

Online resources that cause students to ask questions and to try different scenarios are great because real learning comes not from “doing-what-the-teacher-tells-you-to-do”, but from discovery on your own.  I love using resources that cause students to ask, “What if…?” questions.  It is also nice to introduce a resource in the classroom and to allow students to explore on their own outside of the classroom.  It can be a required assignment, but it’s better if the students are so immersed in the resource that they want to play and explore with it on their own time.  This is why web-based resources are great; available on any devise and at any time.  Resources that go beyond what students do in the classroom are very interesting and engaging.  Online worksheets may be a time-saver for teachers, but a worksheet is a worksheet is a worksheet for students.

Great Online Resources
So here are a few of my favorites.  This is not an exhaustive list; there are lots more.  But here are a few:
Desmos
Desmos is an online graphing calculator that is (both) a great presentation tool for the classroom and a great discovery tool for students.  You can (for instance) place a variable in the place for the slope and use a slider (say between -10 and +10) to show students how the slope of the line changes when you change the slope from a negative number to a positive number.  When you get on the site, you will see a lot of creative art designed by students on a coordinate plane using equations of lines and curves.  Truly amazing!  Also, students can email their works of art (or their graphs from HW assignments) to their teacher or friends.

Hooda Math
This is a site full of games that require students to think and to plan ahead.  They have games for students of all ages and it is easy to search for an age or grade level and for a category that you are interested in.  I love it when students think they are playing games, but really they are solving problems.  Some of these involve math problems, but all involve critical thinking.

Nrich
Oh my goodness–can I spend the next 20 paragraphs talking about this site?  (Please??)  This is a fantastic math resource for students of all ages.  It contains great math tasks that require a lot of student thinking.  Students can (and–I would say–should) work in groups to share their ideas about solving these tasks.  It is easy to search for what you want.  There are engaging pictures and engaging scenarios in the tasks.  Nrich has a rating system to tell you how difficult the tasks are.  They have STEM connections (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.)  Teachers can print posters with engaging math tasks.  I just love this site.

NCTM Illuminations
This site is from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) in the United States.  It has lesson plans and lots of activities for students in all grades.  There are games and challenges.  Students can complete with other students online.

Ten Marks
This is a newly found site for me.  Ten Marks provides great, rigorous, high-level math problems to students in grades 1 to Algebra 2.  It is individual for each student.  When students struggle, Ten Marks provides extra help with hints and videos and math problems that address the area of struggle.  During the summer of 2014, Ten Marks is free to anybody.  At other times there is a small cost.  This is great for keeping up to speed during the summer and during the school year.

Learn Zillion
This is a great site for teachers and students.  They have lessons aligned to the Common Core standards.  They hire excellent teachers from around the county (United States) to add to the site every year.  This site keeps getting better all of the time.

So this is my short list of favorite math resources online.  Is your favorite listed here?  What online resources do you use?  Let’s us know about them!