The Math Learning Center Blog

After teaching the Constant Difference strategy for subtraction to at least six different groups of teachers and students in third and fourth grade over the past month, I think I finally hit on a winning tool: the Number Line app. Here’s what I did. First, I selected a plain number line, no ticks. Then, anticipating two sets of numbers, I added four blank boxes to the line. I told the class of...

This is the scene that plays out all too frequently in my house at homework time. Books, notebooks, and worksheets are spread all over the dining room table. My seventh-grade daughter is hunched over another math worksheet, pencil in hand, frustration building with each problem. I stand, whiteboard in hand, prepared to help her tackle the math she’s struggling with. Today we are engaged in ratios...

We’ve seen a ton of great activity on Twitter lately. Teachers are sharing pictures of their students having fun in Work Places, during Number Corner, and using MLC apps. I look forward to the time I set aside for Twitter each workday because I get to see students enjoying themselves while learning math. Here are some highlights from the past month. This is probably my favorite of the bunch. I...

In honor of Digital Learning Day, I want to share resources and digital tools that celebrate education innovation. I believe that when we choose the right technology we help develop active learners invested in their learning experience. When I look for digital resources, I seek out tools that offer personalized feedback in the learning moment. Since I can’t provide all students immediate feedback...

Computers, laptops, tablets, phones … I can envision these becoming standard tools of my classroom just as calculators, pencils, rulers, and markers are. For now, when students use digital devices in my class, much of their attention is devoted to the device itself instead of to mathematics. We share computers with other classes, and not all my students have access to computers outside of school...

Whenever I go to a conference, people stop by our booth to play around with our manipulatives and apps. Nearly everyone says something to the effect of, “Oh cool!” or “I’m downloading that as soon as I get home.” Many of the “Oh cool” comments are directed at our Money Value Pieces manipulative. And because this is one of our most powerful and popular manipulatives, we turned it into an app! One...

When I was going through school, I always gravitated toward mathematics (and math-based science classes). I never really thought about what math actually is, only that, well, I liked it. As long as my grades were good, I didn’t really pause to consider what the numbers stood for. I already had some idea of the various math disciplines: in geometry we worked with shapes, in algebra we solved for x...

The "Four Cs"—critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication—are widely recognized as the hallmark of 21st century learning. In reality, I have less than 30 minutes in my first grade teaching day that isn’t designated for the three Rs—reading, writing, and arithmetic. So how do I incorporate technology and the four Cs using my current curriculum? I think about HOW I teach. A 21st...

One of my fifth grade students walked into class and said, “My mom doesn’t get why we don’t just say ‘the answer’ instead of ‘product.’ I had to teach her what a product is!” Thus began a conversation in which students first recalled vocabulary used for different kinds of “answers”—sum, difference, product, quotient—and considered how language points us to a specific mathematical operation. Using...

Recently I watched a toddler in a doctor’s office working to sort shapes in one of those wooden shape sorter benches. He concentrated intently on his work. Rather than trying a block in each opening, he would study the block in his hand carefully before attempting to fit it into the correct spot. Often he had the right shape but needed to reposition it to fit. We become aware of shapes around us...