Adaptive teachers use student data to guide instruction. Learn about using an anecdotal record form to support adaptive teaching. In this article, the authors describe how teachers can use learning trajectories to make adaptive decisions to meet the needs of their students. They provide an example using the U .S. Math Recovery Council's learning…

How can teachers encourage productive struggle in mathematics and yet minimize the exposure to shame often associated with struggle? In this article, the authors offer constructive ways to position struggle in the classroom to minimize shame and promote doers of mathematics.

Children's development of foundational mathematics concepts begins long before they enter the kindergarten classroom. Early experiences with color, shape, and pattern recognition as well as the ability to seriate sizes all contribute to a strong beginning to young children's mathematical conceptual development. This article presents how a…

This task structure both engages students in serious, grade-level appropriate mathematical work and allows the teacher to do the intentional and purposeful work of building a collaborative classroom culture. We highlight possibilities for adapting this task structure to teach different mathematics content across grade levels 3-5.

In this chapter, we focus on the difficulties children face when learning place value and how current psychological theories of relational learning may be leveraged by teachers. We discuss two major psychological mechanisms known to support relational learning--statistical learning and structure mapping--and review the evidence showing how these…

Kindergarteners need access to blocks as thinking tools to develop, model, test, and articulate their mathematical ideas. In the current educational landscape, resources such as blocks are being pushed to the side and being replaced by procedural worksheets and academic "seat time" in order to address standards. Mathematics research…

Young people in East and Southern Africa need greater access to reliable information about health and education in order to make informed decisions on health matters--focusing on HIV and teenage pregnancy--and to increase basic education outcomes. Young 1ove organization, established in March 2014 in Gaborone, Botswana, is a grassroots, youth-led,…

The Common Core State Standards, standards in literacy and math for K-12 that have been adopted in more than forty states, are intensifying the academic pressures on young learners. In general, these standards do not reflect how young children learn and are not developmentally appropriate. The author of this essay shows that selected Common Core…

Formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students' achievements of intended instructional outcomes. Formative assessment means assessment embedded in instruction. That definition was adopted in 2006 by the Council of Chief State…

How can educators encourage and better prepare students to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-based fields? To start, students are more likely to pursue these fields if they enjoy and perceive themselves to be good at them. This means introducing relevant concepts and skills at an early age and embedding them…

This research brief describes the value of using mobile technologies in and out of elementary mathematics classrooms, and investigates the view that teachers may not be getting the guidance they need to best leverage those technologies. The authors explore three areas of concern: How can teachers use technology in developmentally appropriate ways…

Incorporating the use of children's literature when teaching mathematics to young children is a developmentally appropriate practice: "Literature … provides a means for children to encounter mathematical concepts and vocabulary in the context of something familiar, a story" (Fogelberg et al. 2008). Moreover, introducing culturally…

This protocol guided the review of research that informed the recommendations contained in the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) practice guide, "Teaching Math to Young Children," published in November 2013. The research review involved the following steps: (1) The research staff searched the professional literature to identify relevant…

Considerable evidence shows that the number line is a powerful learning tool for children in elementary school. Diezmann and Lowrie (2006) noted several cognitive advantages for users, including opportunities to demonstrate the continuity aspect of numbers as well as the provision of a useful tool for representing and solving problems. However,…

A decade ago I wrote an article entitled "Technology as play" in which I called for early childhood educators to rethink the way in which they regard play. This involved not only incorporating the notion of playing with new technologies but also critiqued the essence of what constituted play and the link with learning that was viewed…