Taking Action: Implementing Effective Mathematics Teaching Practices in Grades 6-8

Margaret Smith, Michael Steele, Mary Lynn Raith

Are you ready to take your teaching to the next level? Taking Action: Implementing Effective Mathematics Teaching Practices in Grades 6–8 offers a coherent set of professional learning experiences designed to foster teachers’ understanding of the effective mathematics teaching practices and their ability to apply those practices in their own classrooms. The book examines in depth what each teaching practice would look like in a middle school classroom, with narrative cases, classroom videos, and real student work, presenting a rich array of experiences that bring the practices to life.

Chapters are sequenced to scaffold teachers’ exploration of the effective mathematics teaching practices and furnish activities and materials for hands-on learning experiences around each individual teaching practice and across the set of the eight effective practices as a whole. Specific examples of each practice are presented in context, providing real-life instantiations of what the practice “looks” and “sounds” like in the classroom, with a careful analysis that links the practice to student learning and equity.

The reader is invited to personally engage in two types of activities that run throughout the book: Analyzing Teaching and Learning, in which tasks or situations are presented to the reader to consider, work out, and reflect on, and Taking Action in Your Classroom, in which concrete suggestions are provided for exploring specific teaching practices in the classroom. Tools, such as a lesson plan template, a task analysis guide, and practices for orchestrating productive discussions are offered to assist teachers in applying the ideas discussed in the book to their own practices.

For teachers who aspire to ambitious teaching that will provide each and every one of their students with more opportunities to experience mathematics as meaningful, challenging, and worthwhile, Taking Action: Implementing Effectiv