Many teachers ask how they can engage their students more effectively in math class. In the past decades we have learned a lot about how we can build classroom communities where students are thinking and learning  The Common Core Math Practices provide very helpful guidelines.  http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Practice/

Many of you may be using strategies to help build these communities. Perhaps you give students non routine problems or situations to puzzle over and provide them with tools, time, and discussions that support problem solving. We can also provide students with models of what a math community looks like, and help students reflect on how they  can engage more effectively as a class.

My Use Your Math Power books show children in Ms. Green’s primary classroom  learning to use their math power to solve unfamiliar  problems. As they listen to one of these stories, students can reflect on the level of engagement and use of math practices in Ms. Green’s class. Students can relate to times when they work on unfamiliar problems.

After an initial reading of one of the books, students can share their reactions and discuss some basic questions, such as:

• What does Ms. Green mean when she tells her students to use their math power?
• How do the students in Ms. Green’s class use their math power? What are they doing?
• Now let’s think about our class. How do we use our math power? How can we use our math power even more?

Here are some things students have said about the way Ms. Green’s students use their math power:

             “They tried to figure out a way to solve the problem.”

             “They’re planning with their partners.”

              “asking the teacher…but that’s not a strategy”

              “They put everything they knew together to figure it out.”

              “[The] adding part is the easy part but explaining is hard.”

I would love to hear how your students reflect on how they take part in group math work!

Subsequent readings of the Use Your Math Power books might focus on particular behaviors or practice standards. Here are some ideas from other educators. Click here for more:

“This series is the perfect way to introduce students to solving problems in a variety of ways as well as learning how to participate in a math congress. After reading these books, my 2nd graders can relate to the characters and how they often think and feel during math lessons. ”   Edra Wigder, 2^nd Grade Teacher, Angier Elementary School

 “…as kids learn to stick with hard problems, work together, articulate their thinking and make sense of the reasoning of others.”                       Nicole Feret, math consultant

“Readers can follow Ms. Green’s students as they work their way through challenging math problems, and explore different ways to solve them. Teachers will recognize the real struggles that students face in math, from not understanding a problem to having difficulty working with a certain partner. Students will also see themselves in these characters, and may find themselves saying ‘Hey, that happened to me, too!”                        Laurie Ciardi, First Grade Teacher, Curley K-8 School, Boston, MA

“We just read Monkeys for the Zoo and had a great discussion about problem solving. I will continue to use it as a Math Mentor Text for math thinking.”                                                                                                                     Michele Lever, Lewiston Public Schools

I look forward to hearing about the discussions in your classrooms!

I look forward to sharing this space with dedicated math educators as we work to empower all math students.  I’d like to say a bit about my “Use Your Math Power” picture books published in June 2015.

Welcome to Ms. Green’s classroom where students are learning to become powerful mathematicians. This classroom is my creation, based on my years teaching and coaching in elementary math classrooms. A first grade teacher I worked with planted the seed for this classroom when she asked for a picture book that would show her students a class engaged in math conversation. “What a great idea!” I thought. But I couldn’t find the book. Finally I decided to write a picture book myself, inspired by the teachers and students I’d worked during my career.

 

I wanted to show a math classroom where students are expected to work and solve problems together, where students are learning to respect and listen to each other’s ideas, and where they are reflecting on whether different ideas make sense. I thought about the different ways teachers set expectations that foster a community of mathematical thinking. And I thought about the many things that teachers do to help their students develop confidence in their power as mathematicians. I based Ms. Green and her classroom on these memories of successful math lessons.

 

Ms. Green recognizes that in her class there are students who are bursting with things to say, and students who are uncertain about sharing their ideas. There are students who leap to conclusions and students who take more time to process ideas. There are students who tend to speak quietly and students who have trouble listening. There are students who are not used to taking risks and students who have are just learning to cooperate with others. Ms. Green works to give all of these students the opportunities and challenges they need to grow.