Math is FigureOutAble Blog
A Year of Growth Through Problem Strings
Guest blog: Susan Smith, Elementary Math Teacher.Â
Today was a good day. A very good day. The kind of day where you feel energized and gratified to be a teacher. Today I had the opportunity to teach a Problem Strin...
Real Math vs. Fake Math: What Meaningful Math Experiences Can Do
Guest blog post by Olivia Despotidis, a South African math educator, a Math is FigureOutAble team member, and a busy mom!
What Is "Fake Math”
There is a moment I look back on often, that I wish I could redo. I ha...
Celebrating the Teachers Who Change How Students See Math
Thank You, Teachers
Teacher Appreciation Week gives us a chance to say something we don’t say often enough: teaching is complex, demanding, and deeply impactful work.Â
At Math is FigureOutAble, we get a front-row ...
Factor Puzzles: Helping Math Make Sense
Guest blog post by Susan Smith and Kourtney Peters, Math is Figureoutable team
Feeling Puzzle-y?
Take a look at the puzzle on the left.
What do you notice?
What do you wonder?
If you noticed that 3 x 4 gives ...
Math Reimagined
Guest blog: Susan Smith, Elementary Math Teacher.
This post explores a topic that we also feature in our upcoming book, Developing Mathematical Reasoning: The Strategies, Models, and Lessons to Teach the Big Ideas ...
What is the purpose of math class?
Would you agree with me that many, if not most of us, were in classrooms as students where the purpose of math class was to get answers. We were taught the most straightforward, non-confusing, easy, step-by-step way...
Strategies vs. Models
When I travel around the country and visit teachers in classrooms, one of the things I notice is that the word strategy and model are sometimes used interchangeably.Â
What is the difference between a strategy and a...
The Development of Mathematical Reasoning Part 3
Answer Getting vs. Brain Building
Since I posted the graphic and blogs about the Development of Mathematical Reasoning, I have gotten questions.
One of those questions is: But Pam, why isn’t it okay to teach...
Author
Pam Harris
Math Educator
Pam Harris is a mom, a former high school math teacher, a university lecturer, an author, and she wants to change the way we view and teach mathematics. While Pam was teaching high school math, her four children grew and mathematized their world in a way she had never imagined. “I had always bought into the myth that math is a disconnected set of facts to memorize, with rules and procedures to mimic. I now call that fake math.” Pam’s own kids, research, and experiences teaching real math have shown her what it means to mathematize and to support learners in their own journeys. Real math is thinking mathematically, not just mimicking what a teacher does on the board. You can shift your brain from using rote memory to mathematizing. Pam helps teachers make this shift for themselves, and helps teachers teach in a way that supports students to learn real math.
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