Are your students food motivated? How long does it take them to notice if you have a bag of candy in the room? Mine can sniff it out like bears! Let’s capitalize on that motivation by using fun-sized bags to create and substitute into variable expressions. What’s in the bag? Any single-serving bag with aRead more
Why is factoring so important? Students enter our math classrooms with a wide range of skills. Many of those skills are essential for success in their current courses. Spending the time in your classroom to teach the essential skills can really pay off. It gives students a chance to show what they know or fillRead more
How to start substituting values into expressions Now that your students have been introduced to the terms variables, coefficients, and expressions it is time to start substituting values into the expressions. We can continue working with our picture tiles before going directly to calculations using symbolic representations to further develop their understanding of variables andRead more
How to introduce variable expressions to algebra students Are you ready to introduce variables to your class? Thinking about diving right into the textbook and starting students with the printed problems on the page? They are just letters and symbols that represent unknowns so this should be no problem, right?! For some students, yes, thatRead more
Why are integers so important to review? High school students often struggle with operations on integers. Since integer operations are essential for just about everything in middle and high school math, I do spend some time at the beginning of the semester explicitly teaching operations on integers. It is a review for many of myRead more
Most people would agree that money is an important topic to learn about. But who should be teaching teens financial literacy? Parents? Schools? What should be taught? And realistically, HOW does financial literacy fit in with the traditional high school curriculum? Who is equipped to teach financial literacy? In an ideal world, parents would teachRead more
Shouldn’t students already know how to take notes by the time they enter the high school math classroom? Isn’t providing students with guided notes giving them too much of a crutch to lean on? How do people even have time to make their own notes? These are questions that a lot of teachers consider whenRead more
You did it. You survived one or more year(s) of homeschooling. Congratulations. But just because you’ve done it, should you continue to homeschool? Here are some things you may want to consider before making your decision. Do you still have reasons for homeschooling? Sometimes homeschooling is necessary or preferred because of a life event. HereRead more
2020 has pushed all educators to the limit. It boggles the mind that any administrator would even think that this is the year for PD, but here are a few things to consider if you or your admin “have to” do professional development during a pandemic. Mental Health and PD Teachers and students should beRead more
Curriculum choices can be soooo overwhelming. There are a million options out there with more popping up every moment. So instead of focusing on any one particular curriculum, or even trying to give a summary of a few different options, let’s consider some of the broad categories of curriculum and what you should consider whenRead more