It is so common for Math Intervention rosters to feel like a revolving door. To help you navigate this transition, here are two simple recommendations for building a community in an ever changing math intervention classroom.

If you’ve taught a lesson on math inequalities to a room full of intervention students, you know the exact moment the collective shutdown happens. Check out these 3 activities that your students will actually love.

If you’re a 6-12th grade math teacher feeling like the disengagement, laziness, complacency, and apathy is just too much to bear… you’re in the right place. First, you are doing an amazing job. I just know it. Don’t beat yourself up or feel like you have to find a new career path. You can overcome this. Next, let's talk about the importance of motivating disengaged students in math, why so many students are struggling with math, and then discover some tips to boost motivation

I think most of us remember learning about the Pygmalion Effect in our teacher education classes. Here’s a refresher in case you need it… Rosenthal and Jacobson originally described the Pygmalion Effect as the following: “When we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur.” (Rosenthal and Babad, 1985) In terms of teaching students who are multiple grade levels behind, I take this to mean: When we pass

Not only have I myself been a high school math intervention and Algebra 1 teacher at three Title 1 schools, but I’ve observed well over 1,000 secondary math classrooms in my work as a district math coach and my independent client work. I believe the following five qualities are needed every single day in our middle school and high school math classrooms in order to effectively reach each and every student. Quality #1: Collaboration Research: Promoting Student Collaboration

Let me share a bit about my first year of teaching with you. Year 1 was a rude awakening. I was teaching Math Intervention and Algebra 1 in South Central Los Angeles and while I chose to teach in South Central, it was a very different classroom experience than I had experienced in my own white, upper middle class neighborhood. Here’s how I thought it was supposed to go. Direct instruction → Worksheet practice → Homework. Students would sit quietly and take notes then practice

My first year of teaching went a little like this… Direct instruction, worksheet, homework. Students off task during worksheet time. No one did homework. Students continued failing district benchmark exams. I felt frustrated and over worked. My second year of teaching was a little different. My principal made all of us switch to rubric grading. It was almost standards based grading, but we could still use it with our unit assessments and then convert grades into percentages f

I personally feel the first week of school is the most important week of teaching. The community you create your first week will impact how students feel in your classroom all year long. This is especially true if you teach students with learning disabilities in math or students who struggle with math. We cannot use math strategies for struggling learners until our classroom community has been intentionally created first. Continue reading to find four reasons why classroom cu