The Five Practices in Practice [Elementary]: Successfully Orchestrating Mathematics Discussions in Your Elementary Classroom

by Margaret (Peg) S. Smith, Victoria L. Bill, Miriam Gamoran Sherin

Take a deep dive into the five practices for facilitating productive mathematical discussions

Enhance your fluency in the five practices―anticipating, monitoring, selecting, sequencing, and connecting―to bring powerful discussions of mathematical concepts to life in your elementary classroom. This book unpacks the five practices for deeper understanding and empowers you to use each practice effectively.

•  Video excerpts vividly illustrate the five practices in action in real elementary classrooms 
•  Key questions help you set learning goals, identify high-level tasks, and jumpstart discussion
•  Prompts guide you to be prepared for and overcome common challenges

Includes planning templates, sample lesson plans and completed monitoring tools, and mathematical tasks.    

Genres: Education

240 pages, Paperback

Published September 20, 2019

About the author

Margaret (Peg) Smith is a Professor Emerita at University of Pittsburgh. Over the past two decades she has been developing research-based materials for use in the professional development of mathematics teachers. She has authored or coauthored over 90 books, edited books or monographs, book chapters, and peer-reviewed articles including the best seller Five Practices for Orchestrating Productive Discussions (co-authored with Mary Kay Stein). She was a member of the writing team for Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All and she is a co-author of two new books (Taking Action: Implementation Effective Mathematics Teaching Practices Grades 6-8 & 9-12) that provide further explication of the teaching practices first describe in Principles to Actions. She was a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (2001-2003; 2003 – 2005), of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (2006-2009), and of Teachers Development Group (2009 – 2017).

Reviews

[Nichole Scarlett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book and clear walkthrough of the practices. Rating 4 stars because I would have liked each teacher to have a video/script/examples of each stage of the practices. Ms. Tyuss is a great example but given elementary is broken up into grades Pk-2 and 3-5 in the US, examples following other teachers from the beginning (such as Ms. Stastney and Mr. Strong) would have been more helpful when introducing to my grades 3-5 preservice teachers.

[Maura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m leading a book study on this book (and the others in the series) at work. 4 stars because 5 stars would mean I would recommend to anyone. 4 stars because I recommend this highly to any math teacher or educator who supports math teachers’ instructional practices.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super helpful for understanding the structure of our math curriculum. The chapters about selecting and sequencing student work were most useful.

[harry holloway · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very important book in the teaching of mathematics.