Module 1: Operations and Applications with Rational Numbers in Middle School Mathematics

Imagine this: You've just finished a brilliant lesson. Your students were engaged, you employed more than one level of Bloom's taxonomy, and, quite honestly, your jokes were top notch. You're feeling pretty darn proud of yourself--until you give your students a quiz. And it seems as though they weren't even present. What happened?

If you're a newbie teacher, this experience can be devastating. It might even make you re-think your career choice. If you're a veteran teacher, however, you sigh, get out a notepad, and rethink the lesson. (Or make a mental note to revise it, and promptly forget about it. Until next year.)

Well, that's what this course is really all about. Our goal is to spotlight the kinds of topics that frustrate grade-level math students and teachers alike. We'll analyze the problems together and provide you, the math teacher in the trenches, several different approaches that actually work in the classroom. How do we know they'll work? You'll be watching some pro teachers executing these lessons with real, live students. Not only that, you'll be able to share your thoughts with other math teachers from across your county and even the state. How's that for a teacher conference!

In this very first module, we'll be focusing on 6th and 7th grade mathematics. We'll start with a lesson called The Tree Trunk, in which you will explore the concept of proportional reasoning, which is a really difficult concept for middle school students to grasp. We will then consider order of operations involving fractions in the lesson, Operating on Fractions.

These two topics will be coupled with a discussion of a variety of instructional strategies, including engaging and supporting English Learners, working with student whiteboards, importance of the flow of the lesson, and developing students' mathematics vocabulary.