Newly released Practice Guide: Improving Mathematical Problem Solving in Grades 4 Through 8

IES has just released their newest practice guide, based on research that meets the WWC gold-standard for evidence.

Improving Mathematical Problem Solving in Grades 4 Through 8

This practice guide provides five recommendations for improving students’ mathematical problem solving in grades 4 through 8. This guide is geared toward teachers, math coaches, other educators, and curriculum developers who want to improve the mathematical problem solving of students.
What can teachers do to improve problem solving in students? The practice guide provides 5 research-backed recommendations:

1. Prepare problems and use them in whole-class instruction.
2. Assist students in monitoring and reflecting on the problem-solving process.
3. Teach students how to use visual representations.
4. Expose students to multiple problem-solving strategies.
5. Help students recognize and articulate mathematical concepts and notation.

Check out each recommendation one by one or download the entire practice guide today.

Great math questions ripped from life!

Dan Meyer has recently launched 101questions: an online database of mathematically intriguing images and videos ripped from life. You can join the site to submit THE mathematical question that the image or video evokes.


Each week, Dan picks his "five favorites" from the week's submissions and reveals the questions that members submitted.
So what's the mathematical question that comes to mind from this image, "too good to be true"?
Here's this week's Five Favorites:

• Too good to be true, Scott Keltner. So is it … free … then? I give this image strong odds on provoking a class debate and highlighting some of your students' misconceptions of percent growth.
• Car Chase, Ryan Brown. The current darling of 101questions. (12 questions, no skips, as of this writing.) Notice how the first car smacks into the second, which was hidden off-screen. That's stylish camera work!
• Muggsy Bogues, Tony Gumbo. The question, "How much shorter is Muggsy Bogues?" is one thing. "How many different ways can you express that difference?" is another. (eg. Absolute v. relative.) Start with the first. End with the second.
• First day of school, John Golden. "Is your height linear?" It's a striking visual and the units along the "x-axis" are identical so you have a rare moment to examine the growth of height over time using people in photographs rather than points on a graph.
• Plinko, Michael Pershan. Yeah, great cut at the end there. Where's the wisdom in putting the biggest pay-out beneath the most likely bucket? Bowen? (Related: this image, taken from this video.)

So here are my questions to all math teachers: 

• How can you use these images and videos in your classroom?
• How do these questions help to engage your students in the Standards for Mathematical Practice?

Leave your comments and ideas below.

Worthwhile math tasks focusing on the Practices

One of the biggest challenges teachers now face with implementing the CCSS-M is locating worthwhile mathematical tasks.

To the rescue
The Illustrative Mathematics Project has launched a website that will eventually house multiple tasks for EVERY content standards within the CCSS-M. Currently, there are several standards for each grade level that have completed tasks posted. To view the "illustrated" standards, click on the "show only illustrated standards" in the upper right hand corner.

• K-8 illustrated standards
• High School illustrated standards

Featured task
One of the newly posted tasks on the Illustrative Math website is a task created by Dan Meyer for 8th grade called Graduation [PDF]. It addresses 8.F.4 with a HEAVY focus on the Practice Standards. 8th grade teachers: start using this task in your classes today!

Need math tasks for the Common Core?

At the beginning of November, the Illustrative Mathematics Project website went live!

Why is this important news?

There is now a set of tasks for one standard at each grade level K-8, and eventually, there will be a task for EVERY standard at each grade level.

Eventually the sets of tasks will include elaborated teaching tasks with detailed information about using them for instructional purposes, rubrics, and student work.

Right now, this is what you get:

• A minimum of 4 tasks (although typically 5-6 or more depending on the standard).
• Most will be more like assessment tasks or brief teaching tasks. At least one will be the kernel of an instructional task that can eventually be more fully developed and elaborated with the help of teachers using it in classrooms.
• The tasks in the set will vary in difficulty. Some but not all will be scaffolded.
• A balance in computational/algorithmic and conceptual tasks.
• An appropriate number of contextual problems for the standard.
• Most of the tasks will illuminate the “center of mass” of the standard, and a few will light up the periphery.
• At least one task will bridge in some way to another standard, ideally across domains or grade levels.

Illustrative Mathematics also allows users to register. This is not necessary to see the tasks, but if you register you will be eligible for news bulletins and various opportunities for involvement in the project that will arise over the next few months.

Happy Hunting!