Investigations Blog

In Person or Remote: This is What Doing Math Is

Our staff has been thinking hard about how teachers are using Investigations 3 to teach math in all of the different scenarios they are faced with this year. We’ve been visiting the remote classrooms of teachers we’ve collaborated with previously, to learn from teachers and students who are teaching and learning math online, and to see how the rigor and coherence of the curriculum is supporting them in that work. This series of blogs will share some of what we are learning. (Read an...

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From “Defective” Fractions to Infinite Equivalents

On a recent site visit, I was observing in a fourth grade classroom. The teacher started the lesson (Unit 6, Session 2.1) by writing “3/2″ on the board and asking students to name the fraction. Most said “three halves” although one or two said “two thirds.” The teacher then displayed two blank 4 x 6 rectangles. She established that one rectangle was the whole, and asked students to use their copy of the rectangles to draw a representation that showed 3/2. The math coach called me...

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Incomplete, inarticulate, ill-formed, incorrect: Brilliant!

Over the last decade, much of my work has been focused on mathematical argument in the elementary classroom. Observing in our collaborating classrooms, I was struck again and again by how teachers supported students to build on each other’s incomplete ideas. Constructing a mathematical argument is difficult and challenging for elementary students and, therefore, necessarily collaborative. When students are learning what it means to make an argument, not just about the solution to a single...

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