Welcome fellow Recovering Traditionalists to Episode 28.  Today we are looking at Teaching Mathematics through Problem Solving.  Unfortunately, what we think of about Problem Solving has greatly been influenced by textbooks (just another reason why I’m not a fan of them).  If you open up almost any elementary math textbook you will find lessons on Problem Solving. These lessons are well-meaning but they try to teach students steps to follow when solving problems.  This has always bugged me and I wasn’t quite sure how to express why until I read it in the book Teaching Mathematics through Problem Solving which is a publication of NCTM and was edited by Frank K. Lester Jr. Get all the info here: buildmathminds.com/28

Episode 28 - Teaching Mathematics through Problem Solving

The Build Math Minds podcast is for my fellow Recovering Traditionalists out there. If you don’t know whether or not you are a Recovering Traditionalist, here’s how I define us. We are math educators who used to teach math the traditional way. Flip lesson by lesson in the textbook, directly teaching step-by-step how to solve math problems. But now, we are working to change that to a style of teaching math that is fun and meets our students where they are at, not just teaching what comes next in the textbook. We want to encourage our students to be thinkers, problem solvers, and lovers of mathematics..we are wanting to build our students math minds and not just create calculators. If that is you, then this podcast is for you.

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Growing up I thought doing Mental Math meant doing the algorithm in my head.  Times have changed and now many educators have kids solve math in different ways but during Mental Math it’s still only having kids to do math in their head.  That’s not exactly what Mental Math should be about.  In this episode we explore what doing Mental Math really should be like. Get any links mentioned in this video at BuildMathMinds.com/167 

Episode 167 - Mental Math does NOT mean doing it in your head

If you’ve ever watched a child during a counting collection and thought “Ugh! Why are you grouping the items like that?!?”  Well, there’s probably a reason.  There is a progression kids go through when organizing items they are counting.  Now even though this information comes from a book about Early Childhood Education, it still applies to those of you in 3rd-5th as you work to help them group items in ways that lead to multiplicative thinking. Watch this week’s video about The Progression of Grouping to help you understand why kids might be grouping items a certain way and how to help them.  Get any links mentioned in this video at BuildMathMinds.com/166 

Episode 166 - A Child’s Progression When Grouping to Count Items

It is commonly thought that Geometry in the early grades is just about getting kids to name and identify shapes.  There are actually 4 big ideas talked about in the Navigating Through Geometry book.  One of which is the work around two- and three-dimensional shapes but it is so much more than just naming & identifying shapes.   In this episode we take a look at what knowledge kids in PreK-2 should be developing around shapes and the types of experiences you can provide to help them develop it. Get any links mentioned in this video at BuildMathMinds.com/165   

Episode 165 - Geometry in PreK-2 is more than just knowing names of shapes

There are 4 main strategies children tend to use to solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems.  These math strategies are not tricks.  Their foundations are built on number relationships and properties of operations.  In the Math Strategy Sessions we have already explored 3 of the strategies and our next session is focused on helping kids use and understand the Inverse Operation Strategy (https://buildmathminds.com/strategy-sessions to register).  This is more than just helping kids know Fact Families, it’s about helping them understand the meanings of the operations and the connections between Addition-Subtraction and Multiplication-Division.  Helping your students develop the Inverse Operation Strategy will last them the rest of their lives.  In this episode I’m sharing the first books I read that highlighted the importance of helping kids develop the strategy.  I never learned I could solve a subtraction problem with addition (or division with multiplication) until I was an adult.  Kids should be building this understanding way before I did.  Get any links mentioned in this video at BuildMathMinds.com/164 

Episode 164 - The Power of Using Inverse Operations to Subtract & Divide

There are lots of Problems of Teaching when you are helping young kids learn mathematics.  One of the hardest ones is helping your students to be successful learners, constantly trying to manage a large classroom of students who often are not very productive. In the book Teaching Problems and the Problems of Teaching by Dr. Magdalene Lampert, there was a line in the chapter Teaching Students to Be People Who Study in School, that still has me thinking: “...if we view students’ productive or unproductive actions in the classroom as expressions of who they think they are, then classroom management merges with something that might be called ‘academic character education.’”  That whole section of the book got me thinking of things you could do in your classroom to help your students be students who study mathematics, which in turn helps them to be successful learners.  Listen for my 4 ways to help your students be successful learners of mathematics.   Get any links mentioned in this video at BuildMathMinds.com/163 

Episode 28 - Teaching Mathematics through Problem Solving

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