Are you fed up with teaching math skills from a textbook or a worksheet? Do your students become easily bored with math, or even fearful? When looking to up-level your math instruction, you’ll find that there are many programs to choose from, that tend to be costly, when all you really need is the right approach!
It’s time to throw away the textbooks and reduce the amount of worksheets for your math instruction!
HOW TO TEACH MATH
Decades of research shows the effectiveness of using the Concrete Representational Abstract (CRA) approach to teach math to elementary students. Through this approach, students move through each stage to gain a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts. During the concrete stage, students use manipulatives (real objects) to learn the fundamental skills and explore mathematical possibilities. It’s crucial for students to manipulate objects to make sense of how math works.
Through the representational stage, students use or create visual representations to understand math skills. It’s important that students make connections from using math manipulatives to demonstrating their understanding by creating and drawing representations.
At the abstract stage, students use numbers and symbols to solve mathematical problems. Students working within the abstract stage have a deeper understanding of math concepts as they are able to connect their mathematical visualizations to complete mathematical tasks in the abstract form.
USING MANIPULATIVES
There is a common misconception that manipulatives are only used for the lower elementary grades! In actual fact, using manipulatives is an essential strategy for all elementary grades in order to explore and learn the fundamental skills for new mathematical concepts. Also, using manipulatives are fun and interactive, therefore students tend to be motivated and engaged to learn math.
To implement this approach, it’s important to plan differentiated activities that move students through each stage.
EFFECTIVE MATH INSTRUCTION
How teachers build learning experiences is an important factor into effective math instruction. We as teachers can be guilty of explaining every little detail with the hope that students will be more successful, however, the opposite is true! Students need time to think and explore for themselves so it’s essential for teachers to reduce their talking time!
Encouraging discussions through the use of a range of mathematical vocabulary, further deepens student’s understanding of concepts. It’s essential for students to talk about their mathematical understanding amongst one another so that they can truly conceptualize their ideas. Being exposed to a variety of mathematical vocabulary supports students understanding of math in a broad range of situations.
If you’re looking to up-level your math instruction from an Alberta certified teaching coach, contact a TruTeach professional to book a FREE teacher consultation today by completing our contact form or phone 1-587-625-8510 !
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