1st Edition
Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had Ideas and Strategies from Vibrant Classrooms
Ask mathematicians to describe mathematics and they' ll use words like playful, beautiful, and creative. Pose the same question to students and many will use words like boring, useless, and even humiliating.
Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had, author Tracy Zager helps teachers close this gap by making math class more like mathematics. Zager has spent years working with highly skilled math teachers in a diverse range of settings and grades and has compiled those' ideas from these vibrant classrooms into' this game-changing book.
Inside you'll find:
- 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.
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.
No matter what level of math class you teach, Zager will coach you along chapter by chapter. All teachers can move towards increasingly authentic and delightful mathematics teaching and learning. This important book helps develop instructional techniques that will make the math classes we teach so much better than the math classes we took.
Biography
Tracy Johnston Zager has worked in many schools over the course of her career, first as a fourth-grade teacher, then as a supervisor of pre-service teachers and their in-service mentors, and currently as a math coach. Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had grew out of Tracy's work in classrooms, where she's most in her element, learning together with teachers and students over time.
'Tracy skillfully blends academic research, illuminating classroom dialogues, the thoughts of mathematicians and maths educators, and her own perceptive observations. This seamless mix is a real strength of the book; we not only see what habits are important and why, but how they can be enacted through specific teaching strategies, and the powerful effects they have on our students’ development as confident and capable mathematicians. The reader can’t help but be inspired by the teachers that Tracy holds up as exemplars of good practice… I can confidently say that, alongside Thinking Mathematically (Mason, Burton and Stacey, 1982; 2010), Tracy’s book will become a cornerstone for my teaching. It is a gift to all maths teachers.'
- Dr Amie Albrecht