Marian Small

Although proportional reasoning is not formally introduced as a topic in the Common Core and other mathematics curricula until 6th grade, introducing its fundamental ideas in the early grades helps students develop essential skills in ratios, percentages, and other proportional representations when they reach the upper grades. The author takes this complex subject and crafts examples and questions that help teachers see the larger purpose in teaching concepts, such as unitizing, and how that understanding is essential for more complex ideas, such as ratios. Teachers and vertical teams can see how the concepts can build year after year. This new resource by well-known professional developer Marian Small suggests questions that are both interesting for students and useful for providing diagnostic information to teachers. Chapters are organized by grade level (K-8) around the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics to help teachers use the resource more easily.

Building Proportional Reasoning Across Grades and Math Strands, K-8

Written for a Canadian audience, Making Math Meaningful to Canadian Students, K-8 will start teachers on their way to a successful career in teaching mathematics by providing them with insight into how to make mathematics make sense to students and capture their interest. Author Marian Small combines her wealth of research and practical experience to make this a thorough, yet very accessible text for students. This text is uniquely Canadian with samples from Canadian student texts and attention to Canadian curricula. Making Math Meaningful will serve as an invaluable reference for teachers who often have not had specialist training in mathematics, yet are expected to teach more sophisticated curriculum to a diverse student population.

Making Math Meaningful to Canadian Students, K-8

Expanded to include connections to Common Core State Standards, as well as National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards, this critically acclaimed book will help every teacher and coach to meet the challenges of differentiating mathematics instruction in the K–8 classroom. In this bestseller, math education expert Marian Small explains two powerful and universal strategies that teachers can use across all math content: Open Questions and Parallel Tasks. Showing teachers how to get started and become expert with these strategies, Small also demonstrates more inclusive learning conversations that promote broader student participation and mathematical thinking required by CCSS. Specific strategies and examples for each grade band are organized around NCTM content strands: Number and Operations, Geometry, Measurement, Algebra, and Data Analysis and Probability.

Great Ways to Differentiate Mathematics Instruction

Good Questions

This new resource by math education expert Marian Small helps schools and districts to refine their teaching of standards-based mathematical practices. Small devotes a chapter to each of the eight standards of practice and includes a discussion of what each standard looks like in grades K-2, 3-5, and 6-8. Specific attention is given to helping students make sense of problems and persevere in solving them (Standard 1) and encouraging students to create viable mathematical arguments and to effectively and respectfully critique the reasoning of others (Standard 3). The author also discusses how to formatively assess student performance for each practice standard. To provide additional support to U.S. teachers in their instructional planning, this resource includes attention to the Canadian math processes of visualization and mental math and estimation.

Tasks and Questions to Strengthen Practices and Processes

Teaching Mathematical Thinking

Amy Lin

More Good Questions, written specifically for secondary mathematics teachers, presents two powerful and universal strategies that teachers can use to differentiate instruction across all math content: Open Questions and Parallel Tasks. Showing teachers how to get started and become expert with these strategies, this book also demonstrates how to use more inclusive learning conversations to promote broader student participation. Strategies and examples are organized around Big Ideas within the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) content strands. With particular emphasis on Algebra, chapters also address Number and Operations, Geometry, Measurement, and Data Analysis and Probability, with examples included for Pre-Calculus. To help teachers differentiate math instruction with less difficulty and greater success, this resource: Underscores the rationale for differentiating secondary math instruction. Provides specific examples for secondary math content. Describes two easy-to-implement strategies designed to overcome the most common DI problems that teachers encounter. Offers almost 300 questions and tasks that teachers and coaches can adopt immediately, adapt, or use as models to create their own, along with scaffolding and consolidating questions. Includes Teaching Tips sidebars and an organizing template at the end of each chapter to help teachers build new tasks and open questions. Shows how to create a more inclusive classroom learning community with mathematical talk that engages.

Great Ways to Differentiate Secondary Mathematics Instruction

Doug Duff

The pressure is on. Principals, expected to improve math performance at their schools, often don’t know where to begin—as they may be uncomfortable with math themselves or believe that their schools are already doing all that they can. How can K–12 school leaders recognize and ensure that their school or district is supporting good math instruction? Marian Small and Doug Duff provide the answer to that and other questions in The School Leader’s Guide to Building and Sustaining Math Success. Drawing on their vast experience working with administrators, Small and Duff provide practical advice and helpful tools for improving math instruction. They guide you through the initial steps of establishing a strong math culture, developing common tasks, and getting buy-in, and then offer specific suggestions for monitoring, supporting, and sustaining improvement. You’ll learn what sort of data to collect, what to look for in the classroom, what to listen for in conversations with teachers and students, and how to deal with reluctant staff or parents. With its real-world examples and insights, this book is essential reading for any principal who wants to bring about positive change and real growth in the teaching and learning of math in their school.

The School Leader’s Guide to Building and Sustaining Math Success

This new book is an exciting follow-up to the authors’ bestsellers on differentiated math instruction, Good Questions and More Good Questions. Eyes on Math is a unique teaching resource that provides engaging, full-color graphics and pictures with text showing teachers how to use each image to stimulate mathematical teaching conversations around key K–8 concepts. Teachers using the book can download the images for projection onto classroom white boards or screens. The questions and answers will help both students and teachers look more deeply and see the math behind the math! For each of more than 120 visuals, the text identifies the key math concept and the Common Core State Standard being addressed and then provides teachers with: Mathematical background and context.Questions to use with students to lead the instructional conversation.Expected answers and explanations of why each question is important.Follow-up extensions to solidify and assess student understanding. This book will be useful to a broad range of teachers who will find new ways to clarify concepts that students find difficult. It can be used as a resource to prepare teachers for the higher mathematical thinking requirements of the CCSS Mathematical Practices. It will also be an invaluable resource for teachers working with students with low reading ability, including English language learners and special education students. “This book provides a way for both teachers and students to get used to talking about mathematics in nonthreatening, open-ended ways. The author’s friendly explanations of the mathematical ideas the pictures are intended to surface give teachers who are less confident about the conceptual aspects of mathematics the support they need to facilitate less-scripted mathematical discourse with their students.” —Lucy West, education consultant Praise for Good Questions and More Good Questions! “A must for any educator who is serious about reaching more students more often and achieving more positive results.” —Resources for the Mathematics Educator “A valuable book for mathematics teachers, teacher educators, and faculty involved in differentiated instruction.” —Choice “A great resource.” —Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School “I highly recommend this user-friendly resource for all mathematics teachers.” —Teaching Children Mathematics

Marian Small

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