Math Is for Everyone - Access and Rigor for All Students

The California English Language Development Standards, adopted in November of 2012, describe three modes of communication in Part I: Interacting in Meaningful Ways: Collaborative, Interpretive, and Productive. The SFUSD PreK–12 Math Teaching Toolkit names three signature pedagogies built around these modes of communication, where all students are reasoning mathematically, defending their reasoning, and listening to and critiquing the reasoning of others in small group and whole group structures. This emphasis on discourse builds students’ proficiency in English and also their proficiency in mathematics. The two should not be seen as separate. Along with the CCSS-ELA and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), the CA ELD standards are part of a national standards movement that places academic discourse at the center of student learning. 

• All students can and should develop a belief that mathematics is sensible, worthwhile, and doable.
• All students are capable of making sense of mathematics in ways that are creative, interactive, and relevant.
• All students can and should engage in rigorous mathematics through rich, challenging tasks.
• Students’ academic success in mathematics must not be predictable on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, language, religion, sexual orientation, cultural affiliation, or special needs.

Find out more about these strategies for Math Accessibility:

• Teaching with Rich Math Tasks
• Productive Struggle
• RTI in Math
• Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in Math
• Growth Mindset

Math Ability is Not Fixed

A Simple Numbers Game Seems to Make Kids Better at Math

Read about how Johns Hopkins University researchers boosted kindergarteners’ arithmetic performance by exercising their intuitive number sense with a quick computer game.
“Math ability is not static—it’s not the case that if you’re bad at math, you’re bad at it the rest of your life. It’s not only changeable, it can be changeable in a very short period of time,” said Jinjing “Jenny” Wang, a graduate student in the Krieger School of Arts and Science’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. “We used a five-minute game to change kids’ math performance.”

Creativity in Mathematics

"When parents and educators model creative engagement with mathematics, children come to see math as more than simply a set of facts and operations. We want our students to become mathematical thinkers, not mathematical machines..."

Using Creativity to Boost Young Children's Mathematical Thinking, an article from KQED's Mind/shift, describes some of the ways that creativity infused mathematics. Teachers and parents can help children when they:

• Encourage Students to Question and Observe
• Pose Open-Ended Questions
• Engage in Rich Conversation
• Apply Skills to New Contexts

Social and Emotional Learning and Mathematics

Teaching involves developing the whole child, not only as good mathematicians but as good people—friends, colleagues, innovators, and citizens. Problem solving is not only a quantitative challenge but a human one. We can engage students in deeply understanding what resolving problems entails and what it feels like, which is satisfying for children and adults alike. Find out more from an article in Inside Mathematics on Social and Emotional Learning and Mathematics.