1. Dave Ebert Oregon High School dde@oregon.k12.wi.us
Effective Instructional Strategies in Math for Middle/High School Students
Dave Ebert
Oregon High School

2. Common Core Standards Two parts: Standards for Mathematical Practice
Grade Level Standards

3. Standards for Mathematical Practice
Make sense of problems
Reason abstractly and quantitatively
Construct viable arguments
Model with mathematics
Use appropriate tools strategically
Attend to precision
Look for and make use of structure
Look for regularity in repeated reasoning

5. NCTM Process Standards
Problem Solving
Reasoning and Proof
Communication
Connections
Representations

6. Grade Level Standards 347 standards for students in grades 6-12
“The Standard Algorithm”
Standards are benchmarks, not the curriculum
Good teaching and learning can incorporate the Common Core, but teaching to the Common Core is not necessarily good teaching.

7. Jonathan Kozol
“What did you do in school today? Were you taught to believe? Or were you taught to think?”

8. Steve Rasmussen
“Boredom is more damaging to math programs than minor discontinuities in standards, sequence, program, or pedagogy”
Make your math classes engaging and interesting!

9. What do we want for our students?
Problem Solving
Reasoning
Communication
Connections
Representations

10. Backward Design Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe
Focus on end goals first, and instructional activities last
Set the vision, decide how students will show evidence of learning, design instructional activities to help kids learn

11. The Vision Problem Solving Reasoning Communication Connections
Representations

12. How can we guide our students to show evidence of learning?
Let students wrestle with challenges
Focus on understanding
Have students explain
Encourage student intuition
Let students build the problem
Be less helpful
Make it engaging and interesting

13. Design instructional strategies with these in mind

14. Linear relationships - Algebra
Battleship
Design graphing
The wave
Cars & ramps
Barbie bungee
Statistics

15. Geometry
Geometric terms
Heights of objects
Art – symmetry
Flipbooks

16. Advanced math Statistics and data analysis Radar gun Hot dog cooker
Finance
Exponential decay – M&M’s
Trigonometric data

17. Don’t focus on the knowing of truths, focus on understanding.

18. My advice Move away from the textbook Move away from content coverage
Focus on reasoning, understanding, sense making
Aim for a student-centered classroom
Be less helpful

19. “If my students’ papers all look the same, then I know that I am denying them access to mathematics.” -Olga Torres