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Good Questions: Great Ways to Differentiate Mathematics Instruction
''A groundbreaking effort by one of the most respected contributors in our field. Dr. Small has transformed the research of NCTM's Curricular Focal Points into more tangible Big Ideas that cut across grade levels and utilize both her open-question and parallel-task strategies through an abundance of good examples and helpful teaching tips. A must for any educator who is serious about reaching more students more often and achieving more positive results.'' -- Tim McNamara, national K-12 math consultant, professional developer, and recipient of the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Secondary Math Teaching
''Marian Small is at it again! For decades she has been able to assess what teachers need and provide them with mathematically sound, well-crafted instructional strategies that promote important mathematical foundations for all students. Her contributions, while legendary in Canada, are important for all teachers and their students.'' -- Francis (Skip) Fennell, Professor of Education, McDaniel College and Past President, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
''Planning math lessons for all students' unique levels of understanding is a complex task, but this easy-to-use resource shows teachers how to meet varying developmental levels with a single lesson. The many user-friendly teaching examples of questions and tasks will enable teachers to empower learners on all levels, and the tasks are presented with real-world scenarios that students will relate to as intriguing challenges.'' -- Carolyn Chapman, Creative Learning Connections, Inc., and Rita King, King Learning Associates, consultants and co-authors of books on differentiated instruction and assessment
We know that differentiated instruction helps all students to learn. Yet DI challenges teachers, and nowhere more than in mathematics. Now math education expert Marian Small cuts through the difficulties with two powerful and universal strategies that teachers can use across all math Open Questions and Parallel Tasks. Showing teachers how to get started and become expert with these strategies, Small also demonstrates more inclusive learning conversations that promote broader student participation. Specific strategies and examples for each grade band are organized around the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) content Number and Operations, Geometry, Measurement, Algebra, and Data Analysis and Probability.
To help K-8 teachers differentiate math instruction with less difficulty and greater success, this
* Underscores the rationale for differentiating math instruction.
* Describes two universal, easy-to-implement strategies designed to overcome the problems that teachers encounter.
* Offers almost 300 questions and tasks that teachers and coaches can adopt immediately, adapt, or use as models to create their own.
* Includes Teaching Tips sidebars and an organizing template at the end of each chapter to help readers build new tasks and open questions.
* Shows how to create a more inclusive classroom learning community with mathematical talk that engages participants from all levels.
''Marian Small is at it again! For decades she has been able to assess what teachers need and provide them with mathematically sound, well-crafted instructional strategies that promote important mathematical foundations for all students. Her contributions, while legendary in Canada, are important for all teachers and their students.'' -- Francis (Skip) Fennell, Professor of Education, McDaniel College and Past President, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
''Planning math lessons for all students' unique levels of understanding is a complex task, but this easy-to-use resource shows teachers how to meet varying developmental levels with a single lesson. The many user-friendly teaching examples of questions and tasks will enable teachers to empower learners on all levels, and the tasks are presented with real-world scenarios that students will relate to as intriguing challenges.'' -- Carolyn Chapman, Creative Learning Connections, Inc., and Rita King, King Learning Associates, consultants and co-authors of books on differentiated instruction and assessment
We know that differentiated instruction helps all students to learn. Yet DI challenges teachers, and nowhere more than in mathematics. Now math education expert Marian Small cuts through the difficulties with two powerful and universal strategies that teachers can use across all math Open Questions and Parallel Tasks. Showing teachers how to get started and become expert with these strategies, Small also demonstrates more inclusive learning conversations that promote broader student participation. Specific strategies and examples for each grade band are organized around the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) content Number and Operations, Geometry, Measurement, Algebra, and Data Analysis and Probability.
To help K-8 teachers differentiate math instruction with less difficulty and greater success, this
* Underscores the rationale for differentiating math instruction.
* Describes two universal, easy-to-implement strategies designed to overcome the problems that teachers encounter.
* Offers almost 300 questions and tasks that teachers and coaches can adopt immediately, adapt, or use as models to create their own.
* Includes Teaching Tips sidebars and an organizing template at the end of each chapter to help readers build new tasks and open questions.
* Shows how to create a more inclusive classroom learning community with mathematical talk that engages participants from all levels.
203 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2009
7 people are currently reading
115 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 19, 2019
Great resource for educators who care about making math come alive for learners.
October 18, 2009
[Author: Marian Small] has put together a great resource for differentiation in math for classes from Kindergarten through Middle School.
She roots her approach to differentiation in building a coherent mathematics curriculum around the big ideas of mathematics. She then outlines two instructional strategies that effectively employed can help all students build on their knowledge and understanding of the core concepts in math. The strategies, open ended questions and parallel tasks, make having a class of students on different developmental levels an asset not an impediment to learning. She argues that all students can learn about the same big ideas from the advantage of their own skill set. Then all students can begin to see the connections and the depth of the big ideas through dialogues with their peers.
The one missing piece to Small's work is that the real hard work of differentiation is not just in desgining the tasks set out for students, but the teacher also needs to be a skillful facilitator of discussion. Small's book doesn't address well how to effectively prepare students for discussion and to keep the talk meaningfully focused on the big ideas. However, books like [Author: Suzanne Chapin]'s [Book: Classroom Discussion] cover this material and are an important complement to this work.
Overall, Small has created a resource that can be utilized all year by any teacher of math in the elementary and middle grades. She has arranged the text helpfully around the five strands of mathematics content, and after setting out her ideas she gives lots of examples for each idea of both open ended questions and parallel taks. A Great Tool!
She roots her approach to differentiation in building a coherent mathematics curriculum around the big ideas of mathematics. She then outlines two instructional strategies that effectively employed can help all students build on their knowledge and understanding of the core concepts in math. The strategies, open ended questions and parallel tasks, make having a class of students on different developmental levels an asset not an impediment to learning. She argues that all students can learn about the same big ideas from the advantage of their own skill set. Then all students can begin to see the connections and the depth of the big ideas through dialogues with their peers.
The one missing piece to Small's work is that the real hard work of differentiation is not just in desgining the tasks set out for students, but the teacher also needs to be a skillful facilitator of discussion. Small's book doesn't address well how to effectively prepare students for discussion and to keep the talk meaningfully focused on the big ideas. However, books like [Author: Suzanne Chapin]'s [Book: Classroom Discussion] cover this material and are an important complement to this work.
Overall, Small has created a resource that can be utilized all year by any teacher of math in the elementary and middle grades. She has arranged the text helpfully around the five strands of mathematics content, and after setting out her ideas she gives lots of examples for each idea of both open ended questions and parallel taks. A Great Tool!
August 23, 2012
This was a perfect book to read/browse through after reading Boaler's "What's Math Got to Do with It?" - although there are only two chapters that are reading about differentiating instruction through carefully written questions, the rest is REALLY helpful because it gives many examples of the two types of questions the book suggests using: open ended and parallel tasks.
The questions are organized first by mathematical strand and then by grade group k-2, 3-5, and 6-8. If teaching one of the grades 2,3 5 or 6 I would look at the grade group above and below. The organization of the book is also very helpfully explained briefly in the beginning as well.
It looks as though this author has written other books that would be useful, so I'm going to search for those.
The questions are organized first by mathematical strand and then by grade group k-2, 3-5, and 6-8. If teaching one of the grades 2,3 5 or 6 I would look at the grade group above and below. The organization of the book is also very helpfully explained briefly in the beginning as well.
It looks as though this author has written other books that would be useful, so I'm going to search for those.
December 28, 2014
This book has given me tools to teach math in a way that's similar to how I teach literacy: Focus on the big idea and find resources, or in this case problems, that allow all kids to access that big idea. The concrete examples give me a starting point.
December 26, 2012
A great resource for differentiating math instruction at any level K-8. It provides many examples for leveled instruction or varied assessments.
December 22, 2016
Excellent tool that I will be using to differentiate math instruction for my students. The two strategies focused on are "open questions" and "parallel tasks", which will be a great starting point.
June 22, 2016
Good not great.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews