![]() ![]() I was a high school teacher by training and was only slightly aware of elementary and middle school pedagogy and the instructional models used in the early grades. My teaching life changed when I entered a Masters degree program that included elementary teachers, centered on math education development. Our job as teachers is to help students see and hopefully remember valuable mathematical relationships from one grade level to the next. It isn’t only about mastering the pieces or the skills it’s about seeing how the pieces and skills fit together. Many students have a significantly better chance of remembering if they can “see” the math and then recognize the connections among topics. Good math is memorable math, the kind that stays with students so that they can remember it and apply it to new situations. Besides using models such as algebra tiles and place value blocks, patty paper and counting sticks, what else can help students to see the math relationships and patterns? This is a good question with a not-so-simple answer. Teachers: How to Help Students “See” MathematicsĬomments from students like “Oh, I see” are like music to many math teachers. What would the conversations have sounded like if Thales, Greek philosopher and mathematician from seventh-century BCE, had the chance to meet seventeenth-century German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz? My middle school students imaginatively improvised this interaction during a Spirit of Mathematicians Day at The Phoenix School in Salem, Massachusetts, during the school’s. SYNERGY LEARNING - CONNECT MAGAZINE 2011 A needlework sampler in Draper’s office sums up her idea of the best kind of teaching: “A good teacher teaches their students to teach themselves.” ![]() As president of The Math Studio, Inc., she regularly presents professional development programs at state, regional, and national math conferences. in Mathematics and an M.Ed in Mathematics Education and Supervision from the University of Georgia. She conducts teacher training workshops, coaches adults and school-age students, and develops math instructional tools. During her math education tenure she has held teaching certificates in three states and has been involved with math education at K-12 levels in public and private schools, at the college level, and in the development of regular and special ed instructional materials. in 1982, after 10 years of teaching and supervisory experiences in GA public schools, and six years as a consultant and editor for publishers of math educational materials in IL and MA. Catheryne Draper founded The Math Studio, Inc. ![]()
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