The Math Teacher's Toolbox

Hundreds of Practical Ideas to Support Your Students

Bobson Wong, Larisa Bukalov, Larry Ferlazzo, Katie Hull Sypnieski

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781119573241
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Enseignement des mathématiques

Math teachers will find the classroom-tested lessons and strategies in this book to be accessible and easily implemented in the classroom

The Teacher's Toolbox series is an innovative, research-based resource providing teachers with instructional strategies for students of all levels and abilities. Each book in the collection focuses on a specific content area. Clear, concise guidance enables teachers to quickly integrate low-prep, high-value lessons and strategies in their middle school and high school classrooms. Every strategy follows a practical, how-to format established by the series editors.

The Math Teacher's Toolbox contains hundreds of student-friendly classroom lessons and teaching strategies. Clear and concise chapters, fully aligned to Common Core math standards, cover the underlying research, required technology, practical classroom use, and modification of each high-value lesson and strategy.

This book employs a hands-on approach to help educators quickly learn and apply proven methods and techniques in their mathematics courses. Topics range from the planning of units, lessons, tests, and homework to conducting formative assessments, differentiating instruction, motivating students, dealing with "math anxiety, " and culturally responsive teaching. Easy-to-read content shows how and why math should be taught as a language and how to make connections across mathematical units. Designed to reduce instructor preparation time and increase student engagement and comprehension, this book:

• Explains the usefulness, application, and potential drawbacks of each instructional strategy
• Provides fresh activities for all classrooms
• Helps math teachers work with ELLs, advanced students, and students with learning differences
• Offers real-world guidance for working with parents, guardians, and co-teachers

The Math Teacher's Toolbox: Hundreds of Practical ideas to Support Your Students is an invaluable source of real-world lessons, strategies, and techniques for general education teachers and math specialists, as well as resource specialists/special education teachers, elementary and secondary educators, and teacher educators.

PART I
Basic Strategies

CHAPTER 1
Motivating Students

What Is It?

Motivation—why people do what they do—affects every aspect of schooling. Without motivation, student learning becomes difficult, if not impossible (Artzt, Armour‐Thomas, & Curcio, 2008, p. 48). Motivated students tend to have better performance, higher self‐esteem, and improved psychological well‐being (Fong, Patall, Vasquez, & Stautberg, 2019, p. 123; Gottfried, Marcoulides, Gottfried, & Oliver, 2013, p. 83; Liu & Hou, 2017, p. 49; Reeve, Deci, & Ryan, 2004, p. 22). Conversely, unmotivated students can become disengaged from academics and, in the worst cases, drop out of school (National Research Council, 2004, p. 24).

According to self‐determination theory, a theory of motivation developed by researchers Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan, motivation can be intrinsic (doing something because it is inherently satisfying) or extrinsic (doing something because it leads to some other result) (Ryan & Deci, 2000, p. 55). Many times, motivation is difficult to characterize as purely intrinsic or extrinsic. A student may be drawn by an extrinsic reward but may eventually internalize the values and adapt a more intrinsic motivation (Usher & Kober, 2012b, p. 3).

In addition, motivation is not a fixed quantity (Ryan & Deci, 2000, p. 54). Factors like schools, parents, communities, teachers, and life experiences can positively or negatively affect motivation (Usher & Kober, 2012a, p. 7). Students' motivation can vary from class to class—a student who is highly motivated in one class may be completely disengaged in another (National Research Council, 2004, p. 33).

As a result, educators often need to foster both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Students who are intrinsically interested in a topic are more likely to seek challenging tasks, think more creatively, and learn at a conceptual level (National Research Council, 2004, p. 38). However, since many academic tasks may not be inherently interesting, teachers also need to learn how to promote different methods of extrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000, p. 55).

To sustain motivation, educators often seek ways to encourage students to internalize values. When students do so, they become more persistent and have a more positive sense of themselves (Ryan & Deci, 2000, pp. 60–61).

Why We Like It

In our experience, keeping motivational strategies in mind can enhance student engagement, academic achievement, and confidence to do math. Boosting their confidence is particularly important since many of our students experience math anxiety (we discuss it more in the Introduction), which can hinder their academic growth.

Supporting Research

Many studies on motivation focus on ways to build inclusive communities that promote learning for all students (Kumar, Zusho, & Bondie, 2018, p. 78). Proponents of self‐determination theory argue that people are motivated to complete a task if doing so fulfills basic psychological needs, such as autonomy, relatedness, and competence (Ryan & Deci, 2000, p. 64).

However, some researchers have begun to challenge the idea of a universal theory of motivation, arguing that most of the existing work ignores the experiences and members of historically marginalized groups, such as people of color (Usher, 2018, p. 132). These researchers seek a more culturally responsive framework in which motivation is viewed not just as an individual characteristic but as the product of the social and historical context that shapes students' emotions and beliefs (King & McInerney, 2016, p. 2).

Other studies have focused on the effect of emotions on student motivation (Hannula, 2019...