Bring an open mind is #1 on a poster of Sara Liebert’s expectations for her fourth grade class. Lynne Zolli used that expectation when introducing a math activity to the students.
Marilyn BurnsAugust 26, 2015
Using games has long been standard in my teaching, and for several reasons. Games capture students’ interest and engages them in learning math. They’re ideal when students have extra time. And they’re effective options for the paper-and-pencil practice. Here’s one of my favorites.
Marilyn BurnsAugust 17, 2015
Here’s an idea that I was first introduced to about ten years ago by Nicholas Branca, a math educator who contributed profoundly to my thinking about math and teaching. I’ve tried presenting it as a math-in-three-acts investigation.
Marilyn BurnsAugust 13, 2015
In my June 2 post, I described how students solved 99 + 17. Actually I described only part of the lesson. Now, in response to a tweet, I explain how I also had students think about one of the important mathematical practices.
Marilyn BurnsAugust 11, 2015
I began a back-to-school session for elementary teachers by asking everyone to write an opening sentence for Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The teachers were surprised by the request—the session was supposed to focus on teaching math. What was the connection?
Marilyn BurnsAugust 3, 2015
I’ve been tweeting since September of 2014, and I’m hooked. I never would have predicted that I’d join Twitter, much less enjoy it and benefit from it professionally. In this post, I describe my initiation into Twitter and what I’ve learned.
Marilyn BurnsJuly 27, 2015
The 1-10 Card Investigation has a big payoff with students. It engages their interest, involves them with making sense of a problem and persevering to solve it, and gives them experience with evaluating their progress and changing course as necessary. Plus it has a playful aspect that too often is lost in math class.
Marilyn BurnsJune 29, 2015
I asked a class of fourth graders to figure out the answer to 99 + 17 in their heads. In this post, I describe why I chose that problem, include a video of how the lesson unfolded, describe a teaching error I made in a subsequent lesson, and more.
Marilyn BurnsJune 2, 2015
Students’ ideas often amaze me, and Lydia’s is one of the most suprising examples. She used 7 x 3 = 21 to figure out that 8 x 4 = 32. She reasoned that since the factors in 7 x 3 were each 1 less than the factors in 8 x 4, she’d just increase each digit in the answer, changing 21 to 32. She was correct! Read about Lydia's discovery, what I did, and what I learned.
Marilyn BurnsMay 11, 2015
After I told Steven, the man seated next to me on an airplane, that I was a math teacher, he described the Dealing in Horses problem that he was given at a corporate management training session. The problem has been one of my teaching staples ever since.
Marilyn BurnsApril 28, 2015
