Concept-Based Mathematics: Teaching for Deep Understanding in Secondary Classrooms

by Jennifer Wathall

Give math students the connections between what they learn and how they do math—and suddenly math makes sense If your secondary-school students are fearful of or frustrated by math, it’s time for a new approach. When you teach concepts rather than rote processes, you show students math’s essential elegance, as well as its practicality—and help them discover their own natural mathematical abilities. This book is a road map to retooling how you teach math in a deep, clear, and meaningful way —through a conceptual lens—helping students achieve higher-order thinking skills. Jennifer Wathall shows you how to plan units, engage students, assess understanding, incorporate technology, and even guides you through an ideal concept-based classroom. 

Practical tools Examples from arithmetic to calculus Inquiry tasks, unit planners, templates, and activities Sample assessments with examples of student work Vignettes from international educators A dedicated companion website with additional resources, including a study guide, templates, exemplars, discussion questions, and other professional development activities. Everyone has the power to understand math. By extending Erickson and Lanning’s work on Concept-Based Curriculum and Instruction specifically to math, this book helps students  achieve the deep understanding and skills called for by global standards and be prepared for the 21st century workplace.  "Jennifer Wathall’s book is one of the most forward thinking mathematics resources on the market. While highlighting the essential tenets of Concept-Based Curriculum design, her accessible explanations and clear examples show how to move students to deeper conceptual understandings. This book ignites the mathematical mind!"  — Lois A. Lanning, Author of Designing Concept-based Curriculum for English-Language Arts, K-12 "Wathall is a master at covering all the bases here; this book is bursting with engaging assessment examples, discussion questions, research, and resources that apply specifically to mathematical topics. Any math teacher or coach would be hard-pressed to read it and not come away with scores of ideas, assessments, and lessons that she could use instantly in the classroom. As an IB Workshop Leader and instructional coach, I want this book handy on a nearby shelf for regular referral – it′s a boon to any educator who wants to bring math to life for students." — Alexis Wiggins, Instructional Coach, IB Workshop Leader and Consultant

Genres: Teaching

293 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 16, 2016

Reviews

[Stuart Macalpine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another in the series of books building upon Lynn Erickson and Lois Lanning's work. An important step in forming the concept based narrative for mathematics, that sits nicely alongside work like Jo Boaler's. It is a good read and has some nice strategies for concept based lessons. It is a useful and important book for modern mathematics teaching in international schools.

The model uses Erickson's "inductive" model and things like retrieval charts to scaffold students' understanding. The "inductive" model started in areas where knowledge generation is from generalisations based on case studies - so the humanities, and some areas of the scientific method where it works very well. The emphasis on induction, rather than the wider emphasis on "inference" ( which includes deduction, abduction and induction) is interesting in an area like Maths were much knowledge is generated deductively and axiomatically, not by observation. It would be interesting to see what happened if the emphasis was moved to the broader idea of "inference".

[Cindy Jacobsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that qualifies under the 2017 Reading Challenge as, "A book with a red spine." If you teach math to 7-12 grade students, this excellent book will help you understand how to move to the transference stage of understanding. The perfect book to read after Visible Learning in Mathematics.