Classroom-Ready Rich Math Tasks, Grades 4-5: Engaging Students in Doing Math
About this ebook
Do you work tirelessly to make your math lessons meaningful, challenging, accessible, and engaging? Do you spend hours you don’t have searching for, adapting, and creating tasks to provide rich experiences for your students that supplement your mathematics curriculum? Help has arrived! Classroom Ready-Rich Math Tasks for Grades 4-5 details more than 50 research- and standards-aligned, high-cognitive-demand tasks that will have your students doing deep-problem-based learning. These ready-to-implement, engaging tasks connect skills, concepts and practices, while encouraging students to reason, problem-solve, discuss, explore multiple solution pathways, connect multiple representations, and justify their thinking. They help students monitor their own thinking and connect the mathematics they know to new situations. In other words, these tasks allow students to truly do mathematics! Written with a strengths-based lens and an attentiveness to all students, this guide includes:
• Complete task-based lessons, referencing mathematics standards and practices, vocabulary, and materials
• Downloadable planning tools, student resource pages, and thoughtful questions, and formative assessment prompts
• Guidance on preparing, launching, facilitating, and reflecting on each task
• Notes on access and equity, focusing on students’ strengths, productive struggle, and distance or alternative learning environments.
With concluding guidance on adapting or creating additional rich tasks for your students, this guide will help you give all of your students the deepest, most enriching and engaging mathematics learning experience possible.
About the author
Beth McCord Kobett, EdD, is Professor of Education and Associate Dean at Stevenson University, where she leads, teaches and supports early childhood, elementary, and middle preservice teachers in mathematics education. She is a former classroom teacher, elementary mathematics specialist, adjunct professor, and university supervisor. Beth also served as the Director of the First Year Seminar program at Stevenson University. She recently completed a three-year term as an elected Board Member for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and was the former president of the Association of Maryland Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMMTE). Beth leads professional learning efforts in mathematics education both regionally and nationally. Beth is a recipient of the Mathematics Educator of the Year Award from the Maryland Council of Teachers of Mathematics (MCTM) and the Johns Hopkins University Distinguished Alumni Award. Beth also received Stevenson University’s Rose Dawson Award for Excellence in Teaching as both an adjunct and full-time faculty member. Beth believes in fostering a strengths-based community with her students and strives to make her learning space inviting, facilitate lessons that spark curiosity and innovation, and cultivate positive productive struggle.
Karen S. Karp is a professor in the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University. Previously, she was a professor of mathematics education in the Department of Early and Elementary Childhood Education at the University of Louisville, where she received the President’s Distinguished Teaching Award and the Distinguished Service Award for a Career of Service. She is a former member of the board of directors of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and a former president of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE). She is a member of the author panel for the What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guide on assisting elementary school students who have difficulty learning mathematics for the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Educational Sciences. She is the author or coauthor of approximately 20 book chapters, 50 articles, and 30 books, including Elementary and Middle School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally, Developing Essential Understanding of Addition and Subtraction for Teaching Mathematics, and Inspiring Girls to Think Mathematically. She holds teaching certifications in elementary education, secondary mathematics, and K–12 special education.
Delise Andrews is the 3-5 Mathematics Coordinator for Lincoln Public Schools in Lincoln, Nebraska. During her career, she has worked in both rural and urban districts and has taught mathematics to students at every age from Kindergarten through the 8th grade, undergraduate math methods, and graduate level courses for teachers of mathematics. Delise is a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching and a Robert Noyce Master Teaching Fellow. She is also an active member of NCTM, serving as a past member and chair of the Professional Development Services Committee, member of regional conference committees and chair of the St. Louis annual conference committee, and an NCTM Professional Services facilitator.
