The Math Learning Center Blog

Now more than ever, families are looking for ways to support their students’ mathematics education. They may not know where to start—the Bridges in Mathematics approach might appear a bit different from the way they were taught math. How can Bridges educators offer families a chance to see what a Bridges classroom looks like? How can they offer ideas and options for fostering their students’ math...

Don’t let “at home” in the name fool you. The Math Learning Center’s Math at Home website has evolved into a robust collection of tasks and games that can be used on the playground, in the supermarket, or just about anywhere else—including the classroom. Though originally designed for use by families forced inside by the pandemic, teachers can use the familiar routines to launch a lesson, provide...

The start of a new school year is the perfect time for teachers to get to know their students as mathematicians. Exploring students' math identities means paying attention to their beliefs about what it means to be “good at math” and their perceptions of their own ability to do mathematics. We want to share some of the possibilities within the Bridges curriculum that will help teachers know their...

In this series of blog posts, we highlight educators in the field who are using remote learning resources intentionally to build classroom community, collaboration, and student sense-making. In a recent post , Ed Tech Specialist Tod Johnston discusses how educators can leverage digital tools to position students as active partners in their learning. Digital tools are a necessity during this time...

In a remote environment, how can Bridges educators provide appropriate scaffolds and be responsive to student thinking? Sharing MLC apps with students can be a powerful approach, particularly when working with students in an asynchronous setting. What does it mean to share with an MLC app? Put simply, Bridges educators can build a “saved state” task that they share with their students by way of an...

Physical manipulatives are locked away in classrooms, so teachers, students, and families are turning to The Math Learning Center apps to support understanding of visual mathematics in a remote learning environment. Usage of these free virtual manipulatives and models has tripled over the last six weeks. On Friday, May 1, more than 500 educators attended an MLC webinar on how the apps can be used...

The 3Rs—Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic—have been foundational in education for thousands of years. My recent book, The Fourth R , adds to that list Reasoning/computational thinking. It concerns using human brains and computer brains, individually and working together, to solve problems and accomplish thoughts. Like each of the traditional 3Rs, computational thinking is both a discipline of study...

Bridges students learn more than one way to solve multi-digit multiplication expressions. This enables them to select the strategy that is most efficient for any given problem. In addition to the standard algorithm that many of us were taught, fifth graders also investigate: Area model & four partial products Doubling & halving Ratio table Using quarters Over strategy While my students use the new...

The array model, used throughout Bridges, is the subject of “Arrays, Multiplication and Division” by Jennie Pennant from nrich.maths.org. The piece outlines how the array model supports development of a sense of multiplicative relationships and describes how to move students from building multiplication facts and tables to exploring division as the inverse operation of multiplication. The author...

The new and improved Free Products page in our online catalog features a fresh look, new category descriptions, and additional products. The newly created Lessons & Activities categories contain over 150 individual Bridges supplement sets as well as grade level correlations to the Common Core State Standards. These teacher materials and worksheets that can be used with any curriculum. In addition...