Dr. Marian Small has written a landmark book for a wide range of educational settings and audiences, from pre-service math methods courses to ongoing professional learning for experienced teachers. Understanding the Math We Teach and How to Teach It, K-8 focuses on the big mathematical ideas in elementary and middle school grade levels and shows how to teach those concepts using a student-centered, problem-solving approach. Comprehensive and Readable: Dr. Small helps all teachers deepen their content knowledge by illustrating core mathematical themes with sample problems, clear visuals, and plain language Big Focus on Student Thinking: The book's tools, models. and discussion questions are designed to understand student thinking and nudge it forward. Particularly popular features include charts listing common student misconceptions and ways to address them, a table of suggested manipulatives for each topic, and a list of related children's book Implementing Standards That Make Sense: By focusing on key mathematics principles, Understanding the Math We Teach and How to Teach It, K-8 helps to explain the "whys" of state standards and provides teachers with a deeper understanding of number sense, operations, algebraic thinking, geometry, and other critical topics Dr. Small, a former dean with more than 40 years in the field, conceived the book as an essential guide for teachers throughout their career: "Many teachers who teach at the K-8 level have not had the luxury of specialist training in mathematics, yet they are expected to teach an increasingly sophisticated curriculum to an increasingly diverse student population in a climate where there are heightened public expectations. They deserve help."

Now in its Fourth Edition?with more than 50 new questions and a new chapter on financial literacy?this bestselling resource helps experienced and novice teachers effectively and efficiently differentiate mathematics instruction in grades K-8. Math education expert Marian Small shows teachers how to get started and become expert at using two powerful and universal strategies: Open Questions and Parallel Tasks. This edition is even easier for teachers to use in all quality state standards environments, including direct links to content standards and standards for mathematical practice. Parallel tasks and question examples are provided at each grade band: K-2, 3-5, and 6-8. Along with each example, the text describes how teachers can evoke productive conversations that meet the needs of a broad range of learners. Book Features: New tasks and questions to develop financial literacy. Connection of tasks and questions to standards and mathematical big ideas. About 500 tasks and questions that teachers can adapt or use as-is. Teaching tips and task variations. A template to help teachers build new tasks. "Look-fors" to see student thinking and diagnose difficulties. Guidance for using follow-up questions and math conversations to create a rich math classroom.

Learn how to differentiate math instruction to help all students be successful learners in the secondary mathematics classroom. Featuring 89 new questions, this revised edition uses two powerful and universally applicable strategies-Open Questions and Parallel Tasks-to help teachers differentiate instruction with less difficulty and greater success. This popular book shows teachers how to get started and become expert with these strategies, demonstrating how to use more inclusive learning conversations to promote broader student participation and how to formatively assess understanding. Strategies and examples are organized around Big Ideas and reference common standards. With particular emphasis on algebra, chapters also address number and operations, geometry, measurement including trigonometry, and data analysis and probability. Updated with many new examples and expanded guidelines for teachers to create their own open tasks and questions, More Good Questions, Second Edition is designed to allow students to respond from their own expertise level and to also come together as a math community for the conceptual conversation around a math problem.Book Features: Underscores the rationale for differentiating instruction (DI) with nearly 300 specific examples for grades 6-12 math. Describes easy-to-implement strategies designed to overcome the most common DI problems that teachers encounter. Offers questions and tasks that teachers and coaches can adopt immediately or use as models to create their own, along with scaffolding and consolidating questions. Includes Teaching Tips sidebars and an organizing template at the end of each chapter to help teachers build new tasks and open questions. Shows how to create a more inclusive classroom learning community with mathematical talk that engages participants from all levels. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Visit Marian Small's website onetwoinfinity.ca for in-person and online professional development.

This book focuses on the most important concepts and skills needed to provide early learners (preK-2) with a strong foundation in mathematics, in ways that are fun for both children and educators! Professional developer Marian Small provides sample activities and lessons, troubleshooting tips, and formative assessments, and much more.

Learn how to differentiate math instruction to help all students be successful learners in the secondary mathematics classroom. Featuring 89 new questions, this revised edition uses two powerful and universally applicable strategies—Open Questions and Parallel Tasks—to help teachers differentiate instruction with less difficulty and greater success. This popular book shows teachers how to get started and become expert with these strategies, demonstrating how to use more inclusive learning conversations to promote broader student participation and how to formatively assess understanding. Strategies and examples are organized around Big Ideas and reference common standards. With particular emphasis on algebra, chapters also address number and operations, geometry, measurement including trigonometry, and data analysis and probability. Updated with many new examples and expanded guidelines for teachers to create their own open tasks and questions, More Good Questions, Second Edition is designed to allow students to respond from their own expertise level and to also come together as a math community for the conceptual conversation around a math problem.Book Features: Underscores the rationale for differentiating instruction (DI) with nearly 300 specific examples for grades 6–12 math. Describes easy-to-implement strategies designed to overcome the most common DI problems that teachers encounter. Offers questions and tasks that teachers and coaches can adopt immediately or use as models to create their own, along with scaffolding and consolidating questions. Includes Teaching Tips sidebars and an organizing template at the end of each chapter to help teachers build new tasks and open questions. Shows how to create a more inclusive classroom learning community with mathematical talk that engages participants from all levels. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Visit Marian Small's website onetwoinfinity.ca for in-person and online professional development.

This new book is an exciting follow-up to the authors' bestsellers on differentiated math instruction, Good Questions and More Good Questions. Eyes on Math is a unique teaching resource that provides engaging, full-colour graphics and pictures with text showing teachers how to use each image to stimulate mathematical teaching conversations around key K-8 concepts. Teachers using the book can download the images for projection onto classroom white boards or screens. The questions and answers will help both students and teachers look more deeply and see the math behind the maths! For each of more than 120 visuals, the text identifies the key math concept and the Common Core State Standard being addressed and then provides teachers with: Mathematical background and context. Questions to use with students to lead the instructional conversation. Expected answers and explanations of why each question is important. Follow-up extensions to solidify and assess student understanding. The book will be useful to a broad range of teachers who will find new ways to clarify concepts that students find difficult. It can be used as a resource to prepare teachers for the higher mathematical thinking requirements of the CCSS Mathematical Practices. It will also be an invaluable resource for teachers working with students with low reading ability, including English language learners and special education students.

The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics challenges students to become mathematical thinkers, not just mathematical "doers". In her new resource, professional developer Marian Small shows teachers how to uncomplicate the teaching of fractions by focusing on the most important fraction ideas that students need to grasp. The book is organised by grade level beginning with Grade 1, where the first relevant standard is found in the geometry domain, and ending with Grade 7, where the focus is on operations with rational numbers and proportional thinking. In each section the relevant standard is presented, followed by a discussion of important underlying ideas associated with that standard, as well as some thoughtful, concept-based questions that can be used for classroom instruction, practice, or assessment. Underlying ideas include: Background for the mathematics of the standard. Suggestions for appropriate representations for those specific mathematical ideas, including equations, drawings, and manipulatives. Suggestions for explaining ideas to students. Cautions about misconceptions or situations to avoid. This accessible book provides math teachers with support for differentiated instruction. Math coaches can use it to assist teachers with their transition to the Common Core State Standards. All teachers will find it helpful to see the mathematical fraction learning that precedes and follows the grades that they teach. It is also an excellent text for preservice teachers as they prepare themselves and their students to understand and teach math with a deep level of understanding.

This new resource by math education expert Marian Small helps schools and districts to refine their teaching of standards-based mathematical practices. Small devotes a chapter to each of the eight standards of practice and includes a discussion of what each standard looks like in grades K-2, 3-5, and 6-8. Specific attention is given to helping students make sense of problems and persevere in solving them (Standard 1) and encouraging students to create viable mathematical arguments and to effectively and respectfully critique the reasoning of others (Standard 3). The author also discusses how to formatively assess student performance for each practice standard. To provide additional support to U.S. teachers in their instructional planning, this resource includes attention to the Canadian math processes of visualization and mental math and estimation.

This resource by popular professional developer Marian Small comprehensively addresses different mathematical domains for grades 3-8. Small shows new and veteran teachers how to do three fundamental things well: identify the most important math to assess, construct formative and summative assessments, and provide students with clear and timely feedback.

The pressure is on. Principals, expected to improve math performance at their schools, often don't know where to begin as they may be uncomfortable with math themselves-or believe that their schools are already doing all that they can. How can K-12 school leaders recognize and ensure that their school or district is supporting good math instruction? Marian Small and Doug Duff provide the answer to that and other questions in The School Leader's Guide to Building and Sustaining Math Success. Drawing on their vast experience working with administrators, Small and Duff provide practical advice and helpful tools for improving math instruction. They guide you through the initial steps of establishing a strong math culture, developing common tasks, and getting buy-in, and then offer specific suggestions for monitoring, supporting, and sustaining improvement. You'll learn what sort of data to collect, what to look for in the classroom, what to listen for in conversations with teachers and students, and how to deal with reluctant staff or parents. With its real-world examples and insights, this book is essential reading for any principal who wants to bring about positive change and real growth in the teaching and learning of math in their school.

Learn how to provide rich, online mathematics instruction that optimizes the limited time you have with students, while doing it in a way that does not overwhelm parents. This practical resource: highlights the value of open questions for differentiating instruction in the K–8 virtual environment; shows teachers how to adapt the materials that they are already using; illustrates how students can incorporate items from their home environment into math lessons; demonstrates how to build and maintain community with students online; explores the logistics of independent meetings with students and parents; provides samples and directions for creating tools like number lines and manipulatives at home; and much more. Featuring professional developer Marian Small’s special brand of lucid explanation of difficult concepts, engaging teaching examples, troubleshooting tips, and formative assessments, Teaching Math Online is a must-have for anyone teaching math either wholly online or in blended classrooms. Book Features: Provides immediate assistance for teachers with little or no experience teaching math online. Offers specific suggestions for supporting parents in their new role as the link between teacher and student. Addresses both logistical and pedagogical issues important to successful online learning. Provides online problem visuals for teachers to use with students. Includes reproducibles for creating math manipulatives and tools. Discusses distanced formative assessment. Includes access to exemplar videos for communicating with parents, and for providing students with spoken instruction that they can save and replay.

Now in its Fourth Edition?with more than 50 new questions and a new chapter on financial literacy?this bestselling resource helps experienced and novice teachers effectively and efficiently differentiate mathematics instruction in grades K-8. Math education expert Marian Small shows teachers how to get started and become expert at using two powerful and universal strategies: Open Questions and Parallel Tasks. This edition is even easier for teachers to use in all quality state standards environments, including direct links to content standards and standards for mathematical practice. Parallel tasks and question examples are provided at each grade band: K-2, 3-5, and 6-8. Along with each example, the text describes how teachers can evoke productive conversations that meet the needs of a broad range of learners. Book Features: New tasks and questions to develop financial literacy. Connection of tasks and questions to standards and mathematical big ideas. About 500 tasks and questions that teachers can adapt or use as-is. Teaching tips and task variations. A template to help teachers build new tasks. "Look-fors" to see student thinking and diagnose difficulties. Guidance for using follow-up questions and math conversations to create a rich math classroom.

Learn how to provide rich, online mathematics instruction that optimizes the limited time you have with students, while doing it in a way that does not overwhelm parents. This practical resource: highlights the value of open questions for differentiating instruction in the K-8 virtual environment; shows teachers how to adapt the materials that they are already using; illustrates how students can incorporate items from their home environment into math lessons; demonstrates how to build and maintain community with students online; explores the logistics of independent meetings with students and parents; provides samples and directions for creating tools like number lines and manipulatives at home; and much more. Featuring professional developer Marian Small's special brand of lucid explanation of difficult concepts, engaging teaching examples, troubleshooting tips, and formative assessments, Teaching Math Online is a must-have for anyone teaching math either wholly online or in blended classrooms. Book Features: Provides immediate assistance for teachers with little or no experience teaching math online. Offers specific suggestions for supporting parents in their new role as the link between teacher and student. Addresses both logistical and pedagogical issues important to successful online learning. Provides online problem visuals for teachers to use with students. Includes reproducibles for creating math manipulatives and tools. Discusses distanced formative assessment. Includes access to exemplar videos for communicating with parents, and for providing students with spoken instruction that they can save and replay.