The Math Pact, Middle School: Achieving Instructional Coherence Within and Across Grades

by Sarah B. Bush, Karen S. Karp, Barbara J. Dougherty

A schoolwide solution for students’ mathematics success!

Do you sometimes start to teach a mathematics concept and feel like you’re staring at a sea of bewildered faces? What happens when you discover students previously learned a calculation trick or a mnemonic that has muddied their long-term understanding? When "rules" seem to change from year to year, teacher to teacher, or school to school, mathematics can seem like a disconnected mystery for students. Clear up the confusion with a Mathematics Whole-School Agreement! 

Expanded from the highly popular "Rules that Expire" series of NCTM articles, this essential guide leads educators through the collaborative step-by-step process of establishing a coherent and consistent learner-centered and equitable approach to mathematics instruction. Through this work, you will identify, streamline, and become passionate about using clear and consistent mathematical language, notations, representations, rules, and generalizations within and across classrooms and grades. Importantly, you’ll learn to avoid "rules that expire"—tricks that may seem to help students in one grade but hurt in the long run. Features of this book include

·         Abundant grade-specific examples

·         Effective working plans for sustainability

·         Barrier-busting tips, to-dos, and try-it-outs

·         Practical templates and checklists

·         PLC prompts and discussion points

 

When teachers unite across grades, students hit the ground running every year. Take the next step together as a team and help all your students build on existing understanding to find new success and most importantly, love learning and doing mathematics! 

208 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 19, 2020

Reviews

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommended to me by an AEA math consultant (WOW THE TIMING!!!!) & absolutely loved it. This book screams logic about what should be happening to make life in math classrooms easier. There are also elementary and high school versions of this book.

Cannot recommend this book for middle school math educators enough!

[Andrea Mear · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book for the plethora of examples of the math shortcuts and tricks that we must retire if we are to help build the mathematical mind. This book gives a comprehensive scaffolded plan for helping a whole school make this shift. No surprise that it begins with looking at math as a language and aligning vocabulary terms across grade levels in order to support all students’ understanding. Quite honestly, this is wise to do for all subjects :). Some might see this book as being common sense, but it is so much more than that because it offers points of reflection to help you support each step and gives you suggestions on what to do when something is not going the way you would like it to. Great read for anyone that teachers math or anyone that supports teams of teachers.

[Emily Giljum · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this because I am doing curriculum writing at my school and am only going into my second year of teaching. There are some really good things in here but I feel like a lot of it was common since to me. If you are a teacher stuck in your ways and trying to get out of it give this book a go.