Stop Making Math Hard to Learn

We have to stop making math more difficult for our students’ to learn by providing content based professional development and implementing the “Building Success on Success” model.

The concept of "Building Success on Success" refers to the idea of using small initial successes as a foundation for creating larger and more impactful achievements. The idea is to focus on building momentum by celebrating and capitalizing on early successes, rather than dwelling on failures or setbacks. This approach is meant to create a positive and empowering feedback loop that can lead to greater success, satisfaction and in students believing they can do math. The book?Building Success on Success, Teaching Struggling Students in Math?by Bill Hanlon and published through Roman & Littlefield provides practical advice and strategies for implementing this concept in mathematics.

Hanlon’s content based professional development in K-12 mathematics accomplishes that by beginning lessons with conceptual development using pictures or linkages to previously learned math or outside experiences. He uses what he refers as simple straight-forward examples that work, that clarify the concept or skill, without variation, and don’t distract students from the focus of the lesson with needless arithmetic. Simply put, using nice numbers. As students become comfortable, he then repeatedly scaffolds to reach grade level expectation.

Almost all concepts and skills taught in high school were taught in elementary school. The greatest differences are vocabulary, notation and pattern recognotion.??Operations in algebra use the same procedures taught for addition, subtraction, multiplication & division in elementary school. Adding rational expressions in algebra should be linked to adding fractions. Solving equations to the Order of Operations, Transformations; reflections, translations, rotations are referred to as slips, slides and turns in K-5. Progressions linked to skip counting, Trigonometry to ratio & proportion, Trig identity; cos^2(x) + sin^2(x) = 1, the Equation of a Circle, Distance Formula, and Pythagorean Theorem are all the same formula – just written different because they are used in different contexts. But are derived from finding areas of squares and seeing a pattern.

Using those linkages, Hanlon is able to demonstrate to teachers and administrators how “linking” allows teachers to review and reinforce previously learned concepts and skills and address student deficiencies as they teach their assigned curriculum. Those linkages also make students more comfortable in their knowledge and understanding because the language is familiar to them. #schoolsuperintendents, #ascd, #NASSP, #AASA, #Matheducation, #TeacherTraining