Reddit reviews 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions [NCTM]

The NCTM has a lot of great resources that will give you some baseline of good strategies to use. For instance, they have a page full of "clips and briefs" about math education research. The briefs are short articles summarizing the research on a topic, and the clips are even shorter synopses of the briefs.

Edit: I just realized you have to be a member of the NCTM to access the briefs. I think there's a free trial you can get. It's worthwhile if you want to teach math.

This short book was a textbook in my mathematics education class. It gives a lot of examples of teachers doing things the authors like and dislike, and gives some good reasoning for why you should teach that way.

If you intend to teach in the US eventually, you should probably become familiar with the Common Core Standards, particularly the practice standards.

You might also be interested in /r/matheducation. They're not as active as here, but there always seems to be somebody helpful hanging out there, so if you have any specific issues you need help with, an experienced math teacher will be able to give you some tips.

When do you realize that they are not learning? Is it when you get the test? Do you notice this earlier?

What is the structure of your class like? What techniques do you use to have the students doing more of the thinking and you doing less of it? Do the students collaborate or do they work independently?

Do you have manipulatives? Do you use pictures or models to help with their thinking to break up the thinking?

I teach at a much more priveledged school, but a class can be apathetic anywhere if the environment is off. There are plenty of teachers that don't have as much success as others because of their environment and their attitude in class. The major bits in that regard that I can offer is to structure the class around the student doing as much as possible and giving time for thinking, and time for sharing, and time for discussion, then with a quick follow up.

Whiteboarding is awesome. Look into a book called 5 Practices ... (long title) link here:

https://www.amazon.com/Practices-Orchestrating-Productive-Mathematics-Discussions/dp/0873536770

Focus on building up their ability to explain themselves by discussing how to explain how you know something using definitions or shared experiences / methods, and then implementing them relentlessly in class.

When it comes to technology, I prefer pencil and paper for most tasks and teacher led activities using electronics to prevent distraction and from them getting into pitfalls.

Also, some simple physics or probability stuff is always good to do in a lab setting to see how some math concepts show up in the real world (having 5 people measure someone's arm length as precisely as possible and averaging them, etc).

5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions

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