Making Sense of Mathematics for Teaching Grades 6-8

Develop a deep understanding of mathematics. This user-friendly resource presents grades 6–8 teachers with a logical progression of pedagogical actions, classroom norms, and collaborative teacher team efforts to increase their knowledge and improve mathematics instruction. Make connections between elementary fraction-based content to fraction operations taught in the middle grades. Explore strategies and techniques to effectively learn and teach significant mathematics concepts and provide all students with the precise, accurate information they need to achieve academic success.

Benefits

• Dig deep into mathematical modeling and reasoning to improve as both a learner and teacher of mathematics.
• Explore how to develop, select, and modify mathematics tasks in order to balance cognitive demand and engage students.
• Discover the three important norms to uphold in all mathematics classrooms.
• Learn to apply the tasks, questioning, and evidence (TQE) process to grow as both learners and teachers of mathematics.
• Gain clarity about the most productive progression of mathematical teaching and learning for grades 6–8.
• Access short videos that show what classrooms that are developing mathematical understanding should look like.

Contents

Introduction

1    Fraction Operations and Integer Concepts and Operations

2    Ratios and Proportional Relationships

3    Equations, Expressions, and Inequalities

4    Functions

5    Measurement and Geometry

6    Statistics and Probability

Epilogue:   Next Steps

References and Resources

Index