Mathematics Coaching Handbook: Working with Teachers to Improve Instruction, by Pia Hansen, serves as a reference to help prepare and support effective math coaches. It provides insight into the leadership skills necessary to mentor other teachers, establish collaborative teacher teams, influence school culture positively, and improve student achievent. This tip includes 5 strategies that coaches can present to teachers (or teachers can use directly in their classrooms) to enhance their mathematics instruction.

Math Intervention: Building Number Power with Formative Assessments, Differentiation, and Games (Grades PreK-2 and Grades 3-5) offers successful math interventions and RTI connections for use in small groups or one-on-one instruction. In this tip, Jennifer Taylor-Cox provides a game that can be used for students in PreK-5 to teach and reinforce the concepts of one-to-one correspondence and subtraction.

Teachers, coaches, and supervisors will learn how to help elementary school students build mathematical proficiency with the standards-based, differentiated, small-group instruction strategies in Guided Math in Action: Building Each Student's Mathematical Proficiency with Small-Group Instruction. Dr. Nicki Newton provides lots of actual templates, graphic organizers, black-line masters, detailed lesson plans, and student work samples. In this tip, Dr. Nicki shares seven must-have centers that can be used in an elementary school math class.

The Common Core State Standards for mathematics call on students to "reason abstractly and quantitatively," "construct viable agruments and critique the reasoning of others," and "model with mathematics." While these are math standards, they require social and linguistic skills as well.  This tip, from RTI Strategies that Work in the K-2 Classroom by Eli Johnson and Michelle Karns, provides teachers with a four-step dialogue to engage students in mathematics, while encouraging them to reflect about their throught process, interact with others in the classroom, and use language to further their understanding of key  math concepts.

Solving Behavior Problems in Math Class: Academic, Learning, Social, and Emotional Empowerment, Grades K-12 by Jennifer Taylor-Cox uses realistic, case-by-case examples to reveal practical strategies for eliminating teacher-student tensions related to power struggles, bullying, disengagement, and more. This tip is about "Tonya Tantrum,' a primary school student who has temper tantrums when she does not get her way.

Tonya Tantrum

Today during the math lesson, Tonya threw the pattern blocks across the table, fell on the floor, began screaming, and kicking her feet...

Using Formative Assessment to Drive Mathematics Instruction in Grades 3-5, by Christine Oberdorf and Jennifer Taylor-Cox, explains the importance and usefulness of applying formative assessment to teaching mathematics. The formative assessments and analyses within the book are particularly useful to ensure that students are meeting and exceeding the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics.

 In our monthly eNews, we bring you the latest education news, resources, and classroom ideas from the Eye On Education Blog and other blogs we read. Click below for our favorite educational blog posts from the past month.

In Math in Plain English: Literacy Strategies for the Mathematics Classroom, Amy Benjamin provides many ways for math teachers to use language to increase their students’ ability to understand, retain, and apply mathematics concepts. This tip provides strategies that math and writing teachers can use to increase students' understanding of mathematical terms.

The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics call upon students to be able to "make sense of problems and persevere in solving them," "reason abstractly and quantitatively," and "look for and make use of structure." This activity, from Family Math Night: Middle School Math Standards in Action by Jennifer Taylor-Cox and Christine Oberdorf, requires students to complete multiple operations in order to determine the best pay option. "Salary Selections" enables students to understand the meaning of arithmetic operations and compare the effects of such operations when solving problems.

We're taking a short break from sending tips, but we'll be back with new tips in August.

Until then, here are the Top 5 Math Tips from the 2011-2012 school year...

In Math Intervention: Building Number Power with Formative Assessments, Differentiation, and Games (Grades 3-5), Jennifer Taylor-Cox emphasizes four main goals for math instructors: they must help students achieve accuracy, efficiency, flexibility, and fluency in solving math problems. This tip explains how and why to teach the concept of multiplying and dividing by ten, and provides a game intended to help students build on his concept.

The following post was written by Christine Oberdorf and Jennifer Taylor-Cox. To read more newsworthy blog posts from Eye On Education, subscribe to our Insights eNewsletters.

Formative assessment drives mathematics instruction and is a key component in successfully implementing the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and Response to Intervention. Without formative assessment, lesson planning is focused solely on curriculum, with little regard for students’ explicit academic needs.

The following post was written by Amy Benjamin. To read more newsworthy blog posts from Eye On Education, subscribe to our Insights eNewsletters.

"I know the math, I just don’t understand the question, so I end up
doing the wrong thing! It’s so frustrating! Why can’t they just give us
the question without all the words?!" - Emilie, 10th Grader.

When I heard one of my tenth grade students saying this in exasperation after a math test, it was an "Aha!" moment for me.

Amy Benjamin is the author of Math in Plain English: Literacy Strategies for the Mathematics Classroom. In this video tip, Amy teaches us about the importance of literacy and math.

Amy Benjamin asks the question: Why is math considered something that is seperate from literacy and language? In this video, we learn why this is a problem for verbal learners.The understanding of math needs to be carried through language. How do we teach math this way?