Effective Techniques to Motivate Mathematics Instruction


Book Description

Effective Techniques to Motivate Mathematics Instruction offers pre-and in-service teachers best practices and techniques that can be used to motivate students in the first few minutes of any lesson in mathematics. Veteran teacher educators Posamentier and Krulik show how a bit of creativity and planning up front pays back by enabling a successful lesson on even the most challenging mathematics topic. Organized around nine different motivational techniques, each chapter includes a variety of illustrative examples of how the technique may be applied. Designed to complement any methods textbook, this practical, accessible guide helps future math teachers ease the transition from successful student to successful teacher by developing the tools needed to create motivational introductions in their classes.




The Math Teacher's Toolbox


Book Description

Math teachers will find the classroom-tested lessons and strategies in this book to be accessible and easily implemented in the classroom The Teacher’s Toolbox series is an innovative, research-based resource providing teachers with instructional strategies for students of all levels and abilities. Each book in the collection focuses on a specific content area. Clear, concise guidance enables teachers to quickly integrate low-prep, high-value lessons and strategies in their middle school and high school classrooms. Every strategy follows a practical, how-to format established by the series editors. The Math Teacher's Toolbox contains hundreds of student-friendly classroom lessons and teaching strategies. Clear and concise chapters, fully aligned to Common Core math standards, cover the underlying research, required technology, practical classroom use, and modification of each high-value lesson and strategy. This book employs a hands-on approach to help educators quickly learn and apply proven methods and techniques in their mathematics courses. Topics range from the planning of units, lessons, tests, and homework to conducting formative assessments, differentiating instruction, motivating students, dealing with “math anxiety,” and culturally responsive teaching. Easy-to-read content shows how and why math should be taught as a language and how to make connections across mathematical units. Designed to reduce instructor preparation time and increase student engagement and comprehension, this book: Explains the usefulness, application, and potential drawbacks of each instructional strategy Provides fresh activities for all classrooms Helps math teachers work with ELLs, advanced students, and students with learning differences Offers real-world guidance for working with parents, guardians, and co-teachers The Math Teacher's Toolbox: Hundreds of Practical ideas to Support Your Students is an invaluable source of real-world lessons, strategies, and techniques for general education teachers and math specialists, as well as resource specialists/special education teachers, elementary and secondary educators, and teacher educators.




Effective Techniques to Motivate Mathematics Instruction


Book Description

Effective Techniques to Motivate Mathematics Instruction offers pre-and in-service teachers best practices and techniques that can be used to motivate students in the first few minutes of any lesson in mathematics. Veteran teacher educators Posamentier and Krulik show how a bit of creativity and planning up front pays back by enabling a successful lesson on even the most challenging mathematics topic. Organized around nine different motivational techniques, each chapter includes a variety of illustrative examples of how the technique may be applied. Designed to complement any methods textbook, this practical, accessible guide helps future math teachers ease the transition from successful student to successful teacher by developing the tools needed to create motivational introductions in their classes.




The Art of Motivating Students for Mathematics Instruction


Book Description

Effective teaching is largely reliant on the teacher’s ability to capture the genuine interest of the students for the material to be taught. This naturally rests on the planning that the teacher exerts in preparation for the lesson. Perhaps the single most important aspect of any lesson is the beginning of the lesson where the teacher must motivate the students for the ensuing lesson. This can be done in many ways and is also largely measure a function of the teacher’s personality and voice. Studies have shown that what a teacher says accounts for 7% of the effectiveness package, the tone of the teacher’s voice and the enthusiasm accounts for 38%, and the “body language” accounts for 55%. Teachers should be entertaining, without ever losing control of the lesson, and yet not be completely scripted to prevent accommodation to the quirks of any class. Yet even the finest style of presentation – an important part of any teaching performance – can only offer a portion of the overall effectiveness. The content of what is said is paramount! This then leads us into the theme of the book, namely, the techniques that can be used to motivate students in the first few minutes of almost any lesson in mathematics. This could be the most difficult part of a lesson to plan. It requires a modicum of creativity and yet it pays back by enabling a successful lesson. It is a very worthwhile investment of time.




Attitudes, Beliefs, Motivation and Identity in Mathematics Education


Book Description

This book records the state of the art in research on mathematics-related affect. It discusses the concepts and theories of mathematics-related affect along the lines of three dimensions. The first dimension identifies three broad categories of affect: motivation, emotions, and beliefs. The book contains one chapter on motivation, including discussions on how emotions and beliefs relate to motivation. There are two chapters that focus on beliefs and a chapter on attitude which cross-cuts through all these categories. The second dimension covers a rapidly fluctuating state to a more stable trait. All chapters in the book focus on trait-type affect and the chapter on motivation discusses both these dimensions. The third dimension regards the three main levels of theorizing: physiological (embodied), psychological (individual) and social. All chapters reflect that mathematics-related affect has mainly been studied using psychological theories.




Motivating Students by Design


Book Description

The title of the book, Motivating Students by Design, was chosen because the author explains how professors can motivate students intentionally through the design of their courses. The primary purpose of this book is to present practical strategies that professors can implement in their courses. Based on decades of research, Dr. Brett Jones presents a framework to organize teaching strategies that motivate students. All of the strategies presented are followed by several examples, which provide readers with over 100 ideas for how the strategies can be implemented in courses. This book will be useful to graduate students and beginning professors, as well as professors who are more experienced and want to refine their instruction or implement new strategies.




Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K-12


Book Description

A thinking student is an engaged student Teachers often find it difficult to implement lessons that help students go beyond rote memorization and repetitive calculations. In fact, institutional norms and habits that permeate all classrooms can actually be enabling "non-thinking" student behavior. Sparked by observing teachers struggle to implement rich mathematics tasks to engage students in deep thinking, Peter Liljedahl has translated his 15 years of research into this practical guide on how to move toward a thinking classroom. Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K–12 helps teachers implement 14 optimal practices for thinking that create an ideal setting for deep mathematics learning to occur. This guide Provides the what, why, and how of each practice and answers teachers’ most frequently asked questions Includes firsthand accounts of how these practices foster thinking through teacher and student interviews and student work samples Offers a plethora of macro moves, micro moves, and rich tasks to get started Organizes the 14 practices into four toolkits that can be implemented in order and built on throughout the year When combined, these unique research-based practices create the optimal conditions for learner-centered, student-owned deep mathematical thinking and learning, and have the power to transform mathematics classrooms like never before.




Mathematics for Human Flourishing


Book Description

"The ancient Greeks argued that the best life was filled with beauty, truth, justice, play and love. The mathematician Francis Su knows just where to find them."--Kevin Hartnett, Quanta Magazine" This is perhaps the most important mathematics book of our time. Francis Su shows mathematics is an experience of the mind and, most important, of the heart."--James Tanton, Global Math Project For mathematician Francis Su, a society without mathematical affection is like a city without concerts, parks, or museums. To miss out on mathematics is to live without experiencing some of humanity's most beautiful ideas. In this profound book, written for a wide audience but especially for those disenchanted by their past experiences, an award-winning mathematician and educator weaves parables, puzzles, and personal reflections to show how mathematics meets basic human desires--such as for play, beauty, freedom, justice, and love--and cultivates virtues essential for human flourishing. These desires and virtues, and the stories told here, reveal how mathematics is intimately tied to being human. Some lessons emerge from those who have struggled, including philosopher Simone Weil, whose own mathematical contributions were overshadowed by her brother's, and Christopher Jackson, who discovered mathematics as an inmate in a federal prison. Christopher's letters to the author appear throughout the book and show how this intellectual pursuit can--and must--be open to all.




Motivating Students to Learn


Book Description

Written specifically for teachers, Motivating Students to Learn offers a wealth of research-based principles on the subject of student motivation for use by classroom teachers. Now in its fourth edition, this book discusses specific classroom strategies by tying these principles to the realities of contemporary schools, curriculum goals, and classroom dynamics. The authors lay out effective extrinsic and intrinsic strategies to guide teachers in their day-to-day practice, provide guidelines for adapting to group and individual differences, and discuss ways to reach students who have become discouraged or disaffected learners. This edition features new material on the roles that classroom goal setting, developing students’ interest, and teacher-student and peer relationships play in student motivation. It has been reorganized to address six key questions that combine to explain why students may or may not be motivated to learn. By focusing more closely on the teacher as the motivator, this text presents a wide range of motivational methods to help students see value in the curriculum and lessons taught in the classroom.




Teaching Secondary School Mathematics: Techniques And Enrichment


Book Description

The primary aim of this book is to provide teachers of mathematics with all the tools they would need to conduct most effective mathematics instruction. The book guides teachers through the all-important planning process, which includes short and long-term planning as well as constructing most effective lessons, with an emphasis on motivation, classroom management, emphasizing problem-solving techniques, assessment, enriching instruction for students at all levels, and introducing relevant extracurricular mathematics activities. Technology applications are woven throughout the text.A unique feature of this book is the second half, which provides 125 highly motivating enrichment units for all levels of secondary school mathematics. Many years of proven success makes this book essential for both pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers.