The authors wondered if there was a way to support their reluctant Grades 4, 5, and 6 students in contributing their starting points and strategies and advancing their collective knowledge. They wanted to ensure that the students had the space to develop and take ownership of the strategies they produced through a visual representation of ideas…

Research has shown there are algebra concepts elementary teachers can introduce that help prepare elementary students for the eventual transition to algebra (e.g., the relational interpretation of the equal sign). "Early algebra" refers to the use of informal approaches to introduce such concepts to elementary students. "Strip…

One of the most fundamental strategies in mathematics instruction is practice problems because teachers know that practicing a skill improves performance. At the same time, teachers also know that just because students can correctly answer practice problems does not mean they fully understand the concept or how to apply a formula--especially not…

The use of multiple-choice items for classroom testing is firmly established for many good reasons. The content any unit or course of study can be well sampled. Test scores can be reliable (trusted). And time spent administering and scoring can be minimized. This article provides a current review of best practices in the design and use of a…

The beginning of the school year is a time of intense work for students and teachers, especially if it means learning mathematics in new ways (Ruef 2016). Students need guidance and support if they are shifting beliefs about what it means to do mathematics. This article shows how Torres and her students co-created new ways to be good at…

Students often look to the standard algorithm, which requires rewriting the task, regrouping tens to create enough ones to subtract, and other opportunities to make errors. However, when the authors apply structural thinking, the resultant strategy is an efficient and elegant shortcut and even brings a positive connotation to the word…

This article presents "Be a coach instead of a judge" pedagogy that has resulted in significant improvement in college student learning/performance, highly favorable student comments and better teaching evaluations. This pedagogy inspires students to learn by embracing empathy, enthusiasm, positivity and trust along with other learning…

The book that inspired millions of educators to refine their approach to teaching returns for an all-new third edition. Built on a more rigorous research base and updated to emphasize student diversity, equity, and inclusion, "The New Classroom Instruction That Works" offers a streamlined focus on the 14 instructional strategies proven…

Deeper learning is great for exploring a topic in great depth, but it will fail if student motivation isn't taken into account. Researchers Eric Anderman and Adriana Calvit discuss how to align your deeper learning curriculum with motivational strategies for successful lessons.

Building effective partnership with parents of young children with language delays has strong face value and is supported by multiple areas of research; however, building and maintaining partnerships to optimize child outcomes in practice can be difficult. This article provides a guide to teachers and speech-language pathologists who work with…

The debate on the validity of teaching students how to identify their own preferred learning style is not going to go away anytime soon as evidenced by the number of articles still being written about the topic. One can find numerous research studies that say students have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to learning and retaining…

Lina, a Mexican American second grader, bilingual in Spanish and English, used a strategy for adding two two-digit numbers that the authors share as an example of the importance of listening to the mathematical ideas of children, especially when these ideas do not align with how mathematics is traditionally represented in the classroom. The…

In this book Bill Hanlon provides examples and recommends highly effective and practical instructional and assessment strategies that classroom teachers can immediately implement and that school administrators can readily observe. These high yield strategies build on accepted practices and directly address the needs of struggling students or…

Members of a third-grade class were involved in a heated discussion. They were using a fixed number of links to create fences for toy cows. The children could change the shape of the field produced by the links, but they could not add any links or take any away. Understanding the relationship between perimeter and area is a difficult concept for…

Students often have the misconception that mathematics involves reading the problem, staring at the page, and then writing down an answer. With more than twenty years of experience working with students in eighth-grade math through college calculus, the author has been increasingly interested in how she can foster problem-solving skills in her…