Beth McCord Kobett – författare

Shifting from remediation to preparation so all students can thrive in mathematics

Traditional math interventions often focus on remediation, addressing gaps only after students have fallen behind. Proactive Mathematics Interventions, Grades 2–5: Priming for Success Through Engaging Tasks and Purposeful Design presents a game-changing approach that shifts the focus from "fixing kids" to fixing systems. Designed with a strengths-based perspective, this resource equips educators to prime students for success by preparing them with the foundational skills and confidence needed for grade-level success and beyond.

Grounded in the latest research, the book tackles critical challenges such as systemic inequities, math anxiety, and gaps in student readiness. By integrating formative assessment, asset-based strategies, and practical intervention tasks, this comprehensive guide supports teachers, math coaches, interventionists, and school leaders to create proactive systems that meet every learner where they’re at.

Packed with 40+ adaptable tasks, more than 100 printable instructional resources, and actionable strategies, this guide

Provides a strength-based intervention model to help uncover and build on students’ existing strengths to cultivate their mathematical confidenceGives step-by-step guidance on creating a proactive intervention system—from collaborative planning to formative assessmentIncludes engaging and adaptable low-floor, high-ceiling tasks to support grade-level instruction on critical mathematical topics.Offers voices from the field with real-life success stories from educators implementing proactive strategies in their classrooms, their intervention sessions, and their tutoring sessions.

Start transforming your approach to intervention today to make a lasting impact on your student's mathematical successes and identities. This is a must-have tool for educators committed to addressing inequities and redefining intervention, this book ensures every student can be a confident, capable doer of mathematics.

Math coaches wear many hats. You think on your feet and have to invent, react, and respond—often without time to prepare—in a myriad of professional contexts. What’s your go-to resource for support?   

Plan, focus, and lead: Your toolkit for inspiring math teachers 

Meet Everything You Need For Mathematics Coaching: Tools, Plans, and a Process That Works for Any Instructional Leader. This one-stop, comprehensive toolkit for improving mathematics instruction and learning is designed for busy math coaches and teacher leaders who often have to rely on their own competencies. Using the Leading for Mathematical Proficiency Framework, the authors position student outcomes as the focus of all professional work and connect the Eight Mathematical Practices for students with NCTM’s Eight Effective Teaching Practices to help you guide teachers toward growing mathematics proficiency in their classrooms.  

This hands-on resource details critical coaching and teaching actions, and offers nearly a hundred tools for: 

Shifting classroom practice in a way that leads to student math proficiency and understanding of mathematical concepts. Honing in on key areas, including content knowledge and worthwhile tasks, student engagement, questioning and discourse, analysis of student work, formative assessment, support for emergent language learners and students with special needs, and more. Navigating a coaching conversation. Planning and facilitating professional learning communities. Finding a focus for professional development or a learning cycle. Making connections between professional learning activities, teaching, and student learning. Using the coaching cycle—plan, gather data, reflect—to build trust and rapport with teachers.  

With examples from the field, a comprehensive list of resources for effective coaching, and a plethora of tools you can download and share with teachers, this toolkit is your must-have guide to designing a professional learning plan and leading with clarity and purpose.

“This book is a game changer! Strengths-Based Teaching and Learning in Mathematics: 5 Teaching Turnarounds for Grades K- 6 goes beyond simply providing information by sharing a pathway for changing practice. . . Focusing on our students’ strengths should be routine and can be lost in the day-to-day teaching demands. A teacher using these approaches can change the trajectory of students’ lives forever. All teachers need this resource!    

Connie S. Schrock Emporia State University National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics President, 2017-2019

NEW COVID RESOURCES ADDED:  A Parent’s Toolkit to Strengths-Based Learning in Math is now available on the book’s companion website to support families engaged in math learning at home. This toolkit provides a variety of home-based activities and games for families to engage in together.

Your game plan for unlocking mathematics by focusing on students’ strengths.

We often evaluate student thinking and their work from a deficit point of view, particularly in mathematics, where many teachers have been taught that their role is to diagnose and eradicate students’ misconceptions. But what if instead of focusing on what students don’t know or haven’t mastered, we identify their mathematical strengths and build next instructional steps on students’ points of power?

Beth McCord Kobett and Karen S. Karp answer this question and others by highlighting five key teaching turnarounds for improving students’ mathematics learning: identify teaching strengths, discover and leverage students’ strengths, design instruction from a strengths-based perspective, help students identify their points of power, and promote strengths in the school community and at home. Each chapter provides opportunities to stop and consider current practice, reflect, and transfer practice while also sharing

·         Downloadable resources, activities, and tools

·         Examples of student work within Grades K–6

·         Real teachers’ notes and reflections for discussion

It’s time to turn around our approach to mathematics instruction, end deficit thinking, and nurture each student’s mathematical strengths by emphasizing what makes them each unique and powerful.