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Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had: Ideas and Strategies from Vibrant Classrooms book cover

1st Edition

Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had Ideas and Strategies from Vibrant Classrooms

By Tracy Johnston Zager Copyright 2017
392 Pages
by Routledge

392 Pages
by Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Ask mathematicians to describe mathematics and they' ll use words like playful, beautiful, and creative. Pose the same question to students and many will use words like boring, useless, and even humiliating. Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had , author Tracy Zager helps teachers close this gap by making math class more like mathematics. Zager has spent years working with highly... Read more
Breaking the Cycle; 2: What Do Mathematicians Do?; 3: Mathematicians Take Risks; 4: Mathematicians make mistakes; Mathematicians are Precise; 6: Mathematicians Rise To A Challenge; 7: Mathematicians Ask Questions; 8: Mathematicians Connect Ideas; 9: Mathematicians USE Intuition; 10: Mathematicians Reason; 11: Mathematicians Prove; 12: Mathematicians Work Together and Alone; 13: “Favorable Conditions” for all math students

Biography

Tracy Johnston Zager has worked in many schools over the course of her career, first as a fourth-grade teacher, then as a supervisor of pre-service teachers and their in-service mentors, and currently as a math coach. Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had grew out of Tracy's work in classrooms, where she's most in her element, learning together with teachers and students over time.

'Tracy skillfully blends academic research, illuminating classroom dialogues, the thoughts of mathematicians and maths educators, and her own perceptive observations. This seamless mix is a real strength of the book; we not only see what habits are important and why, but how they can be enacted through specific teaching strategies, and the powerful effects they have on our students’ development as confident and capable mathematicians. The reader can’t help but be inspired by the teachers that Tracy holds up as exemplars of good practice… I can confidently say that, alongside Thinking Mathematically (Mason, Burton and Stacey, 1982; 2010), Tracy’s book will become a cornerstone for my teaching. It is a gift to all maths teachers.'

- Dr Amie Albrecht


'Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had: Ideas and Strategies from Vibrant Classrooms addresses the common gap between mathematicians who perceive math as creative and fun and students who view it is boring at best and frustrating at worst, and helps teachers move students from dull math classes to more vibrant, lively productions. The author spent years with many math teachers in a wide range of settings and grades to collect the successful strategies that would reach grades K-8 through this collection. Chapters offer examples of innovative teaching methods, measurable results in improving math comprehension and usage, and include strategies, examinations of conjectures, and tips on how to lead math students to make new, exciting connections. The result is a powerful survey highly recommended for any math instructor seeking specific keys to not just teaching the basics, but making math relevant and exciting.'

- Midwest Book Review

'Math concepts can be hard for me to absorb when I’m learning them, not to mention trying to teach them to someone else. After reading this book, though, I have found a sense of confidence and security that I can teach this rigorous subject, and I can teach it using these inspiring strategies. My goal for my students is to help them gain full ownership of mathematical learning. Using strategies like discussing the theories in math and coming up with questions (rather than just providing answers), as Tracy Johnston Zager writes about in Becoming the Math Teach You Wish You’d Had, makes it more likely I will succeed.'

Emmy Avery Witham, student at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, ME and studying to be a certified teacher.


'This post is about Tracy Zager’s most excellent book, Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You’d Had. Each chapter starts out comparing how mathematicians talk about what they do and what students’ experience of it is. Then it moves on to detailed examples of the aspect of maths thinking in action in real classrooms, as well as strategies to encourage it both in your students and in yourself as a teacher.

I didn’t expect to see this last point about encouraging these attitudes and thinking in yourself as a teacher. Yet it is the most compelling feature of the book for me. Indeed, I don’t think the book would have had nearly the impact it had on me (or the impact I see it having on others) without this constant message that to help your students experience maths differently, then you yourself need to experience it differently too. More than this, Tracy doesn’t just make this need clear, but actively and compassionately empowers us to seek out ways to fill it.

“Somewhere inside you is a child who used to play with numbers, patterns and shapes. Reconnecting with your inner mathematician will improve your teaching and benefit your students, and it will also benefit you.”— Tracy Zager, Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You’d Had, p39.'

- David Butler


“Revel in the treasures each chapter offers and let it inspire your own curiosity about children’s mathematician ideas…Your copy will become dog-eared, taped, scribbled on, and referenced over and over again."

- Elham Kazem

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