"This book is an amazing resource for teachers who are struggling to help students develop both procedural fluency and conceptual understanding..."
                                                                                                                       --Dr. Margaret (Peg) Smith, co-author of 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematical Discussions

Robert Kaplinsky, the co-creator of Open Middle math problems, brings his new class of tasks designed to stimulate deeper thinking and lively discussion among middle and high school students in Open Middle Math: Problems That Unlock Student Thinking, Grades 6-12. The problems are characterized by a “closed beginning,” meaning all students start with the same initial problem, and a “closed end,” meaning there is only one correct or optimal answer. The key is that the middle is “open” in the sense that there are multiple ways to approach and ultimately solve the problem. These tasks have proven enormously popular with teachers looking to assess and deepen student understanding, build student stamina, and energize their classrooms.
 

• Professional Learning Resource for Teachers: Open Middle Math is an indispensable resource for educators interested in teaching student-centered mathematics in middle and high schools consistent with the national and state standards
• Sample Problems at Each Grade: The book demonstrates the Open Middle concept with sample problems ranging from dividing fractions at 6th grade to algebra, trigonometry, and calculus
• Teaching Tips for Student-Centered Math Classrooms: Kaplinsky shares guidance on choosing problems, designing your own math problems, and teaching for multiple purposes, including formative assessment, identifying misconceptions, procedural fluency, and conceptual understanding
• Adaptable and Accessible Math: The tasks can be solved using various strategies at different levels of sophistication, which means all students can access the problems and participate in the conversation

• How to Teach Student-Centered Mathematics: Zager outlines a problem-solving approach to mathematics for elementary and middle school educators looking for new ways to inspire student learning
• Big Ideas, Practical Application: This math book contains dozens of practical and accessible teaching techniques that focus on fundamental math concepts, including strategies that simulate connection of big ideas; rich tasks that encourage students to wonder, generalize, hypothesize, and persevere; and routines to teach students how to collaborate
• Key Topics for Elementary and Middle School Teachers: Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had offers fresh perspectives on common challenges, from formative assessment to classroom management for elementary and middle school teachers

• PreK – Grade 5 Counting Activities: Choral Counting & Counting Collections brings new depth and dimension to two foundational features of the elementary school curriculum consistent with national and state standards. The book is organized by grade-level bands

• Choral Counting: Choral Counting involves the teacher leading students in counting aloud together followed by a lively discussion of patterns they notice in the number sequence

• Counting Collections: In Counting Collections, students figure out how many items are in a collection of fun objects then come up with a way to record their strategy

• New Strategies for Elementary Math: Choral Counting & Counting Collections demonstrates how to facilitate open-ended counting activities to deepen children's number sense as part of an approach to teaching student-centric mathematics

• Benefits of Counting Activities: Counting activities can product both social and academic benefits and can help teachers engage with families to build on students' mathematical thinking

• 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