Blog

The ability to identify and match numbers is important, but what is often missing is foundational understanding of place value. Interview-style approaches can reveal how a student thinks about ones, tens and eventually hundreds, thousands, and beyond.

Dr. Julie Comay explores how learning math is filled with joyful possibilities. In her message at this year’s meeting of the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), president Trina Wilkerson delivered a stirring call for bringing joy into mathematics classrooms. The positive language and hopeful sentiments represent a welcome.

Whole number bias is the tendency to apply or misapply one’s understanding of whole numbers or natural numbers – the numbers we typically count with – to rational numbers. It makes sense that people might apply what they have learned about whole numbers, like 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 to their understanding of fractions, but unfortunately this leads to all kinds of misunderstandings about fractions.

Taking time at the beginning of a science unit to allow students to share or document how they understand and relate to a topic is an opportunity for educators to see and hear how their students are making sense of the world. It brings to light the foundational thinking with which students will be building their scientific knowledge.

Birds spark curiosity in everyone. You can explore how things fly, chart migration patterns across the world, or even design feeders to outsmart a squirrel. It’s a chance to take learning outside and make real-world connections.

Students use math to explore how explore the factors that influence one’s ability to access food.