Math Education Articles for Teachers - Page 3

Over the past two-and-a-half years, I have enjoyed developing Project Based Learning (PBL) curriculum in mathematics on two fronts. One avenue has been for a national charter school system (the Henry Ford Learning Institute-HFLI) preparing middle school and high school math projects. Concurrently...

February is Black History Month. So why not highlight lessons that connect mathematics to Africans and African Americans?  Looking to African culture generally, students could investigate the cultural and mathematical significance of geometric patterns from various African tribes.  For instanc...

In January we welcome the mythical Baby New Year, and give our regards to Father Time. We post our new calendars and make our resolutions. This month, we can also motivate students with lessons that relate to calendars and keeping the most popular resolution: getting healthy. An interdisciplinar...

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, and/or Kwanzaa, the joy and festivities of the season will enliven your classroom by connecting math to the holidays.   For instance, probability may be studied while playing the traditional Hanukkah game “Spin the Dreidel.” Tokens are first evenly dist...

The ancient Egyptians used math for just about everything. They measured time, surveyed land, calculated the level of the Nile flooding, created a monetary system, and even collected taxes. Integrating mathematics and mythology, they were one of the first civilizations to estimate the number of d...

Christopher Columbus is sometimes a subject of controversy when studied in schools today.  However, often absent from any debate is an objective study of the mathematics that Columbus and other explorers of the era relied upon in their pursuits. To start with, Columbus needed to cr...

Many students associate math with anxiety. So one of the many perks of the back-to-school season is to offer a fresh, positive approach to mathematics for students. It is the teacher’s duty to demonstrate that students can have a healthy relationship with math. Start anew with activities that con...

In August, I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate in the “2010 Numeracy and Financial Education Summer Institute,” sponsored by the FINRA Investor Education Foundation and Drexel University’s Math Forum. Math educators and financial experts met for three days to collaborate on ways t...

The absence of jarring school bells and clocks that dictate one’s every move is a refreshing, relaxing break that summer usually awards most teachers (as well as students). Calming summer sounds are accompanied by nature’s elements in all their glory, be they in lush, blooming gardens or at cool ...

Connect-the-dots is an easy puzzle that almost everyone fondly recalls from kindergarten. So for a non-threatening, enjoyable way to become familiar with the Cartesian coordinate grid, why not incorporate such a puzzle? Either the teacher or student may create some images made with connecting spe...

Sitting still all day in your seat taking notes can make anybody restless. Why not have students use walking as a way to engage them in experiments and activities to learn about math?  One activity might examine different strides for walking. Have students design an experiment to determine what ...

Scatter plots are graphs that can be used to analyze a set of data each having an “x” and a “y” coordinate on the Cartesian plane. At the middle school level, students might first be introduced to scatter plots while studying different kinds of graphs. They can compare these types of graphs to hi...

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a hand-held object is worth a million. Using manipulatives in mathematics can help bring conceptual ideas alive for students. Yet, because mathematics is traditionally taught more abstractly, relying on textbooks, paper, and pencil, teachers in middle schoo...

Analyzing geometric solids, such as prisms, pyramids, cylinders, cones, and spheres, is an engaging way to get students to begin thinking about geometry. Teachers can begin a lesson on geometric solids by bringing in everyday objects, such as cereal boxes, oatmeal cylinders, ice cream cones, and ...

Kids are constantly wondering how they measure up. But they also revel in the hands-on activity of measuring—especially measuring one another's height. Measuring each other's height can be a fun-filled and educational precursor to reviewing conversion equations for middle school or high school st...