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The Best Way to Learn Math is to Learn to Fail Productively
Manu Kapur's research finds that students are more successful when teachers allow them to have a period of (teacher-planned) productive struggle with material before the teacher provides direct instruction on the math strategies. Read More
Rethinking How We See Mistakes
Math teacher Audrey McLaren writes about encouraging students to make and learn from mistakes. She recommends specific strategies for changing a classroom's culture around mistakes. Read More
Purposeful Numberless Word Problems
In these blog posts, Brian Bushart addresses types of word problems and a strategy for instruction. Read More
Radical Equations
The author writes about the connection between math and science literacy and full citizenship/access to power. The idea that math is a necessary tool for accessing full civil rights may be of interest to many ABE teachers. Read More
One Formula to Rule Them All
Before you teach another formula for area of a 2-D shape, check out the "applets" on this page. Teachers who do not have access to internet in their classroom can learn from the animations and do a similar demonstration with paper. Read More
Picture Yourself as a Stereotypical Male
How do race, gender, exposure to stereotypes, and classroom demographics impact student performance? Can test anxiety be a result of the experience of bias, and unrelated to actual ability? Can helping students see themselves as "complex, intelligent, talented, individual human selves" impact their academic performance? Read More
Instructional Strategies for Counting
These three blog posts from an elementary math coach describe instructional strategies around basic counting that may be useful for some ABE teachers addressing very basic numeracy. Read More
Introducing the Orangamallow
A quick reading about a quick strategy a teacher uses to make "like terms" meaningful to her students. Read More
Great Estimations by B. Goldstone
This picture book both describes estimation strategies and gives interesting, appealing images to practice on. An ABE teacher may scaffold the book by focusing an instructional activity around certain pages. Read More
Fast Growing Plant
An activity where students must determine how tall the plant was x time ago if it is a certain height now and how fast it will grow. Read More