Transitioning between two worlds, students in the middle grades (4-9) are no longer elementary students but are not quite ready for the challenges of secondary school. The state departments of education are beginning to recognize that the preparation of teachers for these students must change.
Teaching and Learning Middle Grades Mathematics is the ideal text for future teachers who are completing their pre-service instruction. Through readings, lessons, sample middle grades exercises, and more, future teachers learn to address the teaching and learning of algebraic and geometric thinking at the level appropriate for middle grades students. The lessons in this text follow a popular collaborative teaching method used in middle schools called Launch, Explore, Share and Summarize that involves very little lecturing, a lot of group work, and class discussions. Teaching and Learning Middle Grades Mathematics will serve as a life long resources to students, as each lesson is filled with student pages which are worksheets that can be modified for use in actual middle grades classrooms. The text comes packaged with a CD-ROM that will be a valuable resource, containing professional readings that correlate directly to the lessons in the text.