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"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo

"Math games are a great way to help students improve their math facts accuracy. These games can be general math or focus on a specific math concept such as, solving integers. One math game is called "Fraction Face-Off." This game can also be modified to address a varied of math concepts."

Math Apprentice answers the question that is on the minds of most math students: When are we ever going to use math in the real world? This rich, multimedia site provides students an opportunity to try various professions that use math. Students can be scientists, engineers, computer animators, video game programmers, and more. Math Apprentice provides areas of free exploration as well as specific problems to solve.

As former elementary science and math education professor, I was always encouraging preservice teachers to teach science and math from a hands-on, minds-on perspective. My goal was single minded in the sense that for students to learn science and math their curiosity must peaked. This was always a challenge because most of these preservice teachers learned science and math by rote memorization of facts. Their prior knowledge and experience had few opportunities to actually investigate science phenomena and truly understand the usefulness of math.

Registration for World Math Day (March 3, 2010) opened today for students ages 5-18 at www.worldmathday.com. The competition is a free, online math competition where students compete against one another in a quest to answer the most math questions in 24 hours. Last year, a new world record was set after a staggering 1,952,879 million students from 38,058 schools in 204 countries answered 452,681,681 math questions correctly during the World Math Day competition. Students are looking to break the record again this year. This is a REALLY cool event.

Great project - this is on March 3 and registration closes March 1st, 2010.

A great place for math videos. This looks very interesting.

Tons of math videos and clips here. Some great resources for math teachers. From kindergarten to upper level math!

From Dreambox in my inbox: "In honor of Math Awareness Month this April, I am e-mailing you this morning to share the news that DreamBox Learning is launching DreamBox Math Classroom, a school version of the curriculum and standards based children’s math adventure game, DreamBox Learning K-2 Math. To celebrate the release, DreamBox Learning offers free access to the game for any kindergarten, first or second grade classroom in the U.S. and Canada through the end of the current school year or June 30, 2009. Teachers at accredited schools can simply visit www.dreambox.com/teachers to sign up for classroom usage. "

A monstrous list of math links including some cool math bingo and other math collections. This UK collection has a ton of resources for those who are always looking for math things.

MathMovesU is an innovative program sponsored by Raytheon designed to engage middle-school students with math. MathMovesU.com features content that appeals to things they are most passionate about, such as sports, music, and fashion, while delivering math subject matter in engaging ways, like games, polls, and fun math facts. Play math games, win prizes, and more!

Writing in math is an excellent way to determine if students' understand or do not understand the math they are learning about. Allowing students to explain how they solved a math problem, how they developed a formula to solve a problem, or how they applied a math concept requires critical thinking.

Webmath is a math-help web site that generates answers to specific math questions and problems, as entered by a user, at any particular moment. The math answers are generated and displayed real-time, at the moment a web user types in their math problem and clicks "solve." In addition to the answers, Webmath also shows the student how to arrive at the answer.

"A major study into maths attainment has found that boys and girls perform equally in the subject, dispelling long-held myths around gender and education. The first UK-wide research of its kind for 13 years was carried out by Keith Topping, Professor of Educational and Social Research at the University of Dundee, and education assessment company Renaissance found differences in maths attainment between girls and boys to be almost negligible. The study also found that regular and high-quality maths practice improves outcomes across the board and that primary pupils outperformed secondary students, with better attainment scores."

"Primary school students are more likely to understand and engage with maths if classes use real money and real-life projects, according to a Western Sydney University pilot study. The findings come as Australian students lag behind other countries in maths, with Year 4 students dropping from 18th to 28th out of 49 countries in year 4 maths in the latest Trends in International Mathematics and Science study."

A truly amazing Apple App for learning maths. Download the host or client app to your Apple device and set maths quizzes to complete in real time together in class. The apps communicate through a wireless network or Bluetooth and the host device tracks and keeps all the data for each quiz so you can see where your class need to improve. To set questions you just turn the sections on or off and the app chooses questions from these at random. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

A useful virtual maths geoboard to explore a range of shape and angle work. There is also an iPad version which can be found at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/geoboard-by-math-learning/id519896952 http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

Parents who excel at maths produce children who excel at maths. This is according to a recently released University of Pittsburgh study, which shows a distinct transfer of math skills from parent to child. The study specifically explored intergenerational transmission-the concept of parental influence on an offspring's behaviour or psychology-in mathematic capabilities.

I'm rubbish at Maths' are words that regularly come out of mouth during my adult life. This fixed mindset is deep rooted. When faced with a Maths challenge I have immediate flashbacks to those bottom set Maths lessons where everyone else were given more complicated problems with bigger numbers to solve. I may have a fixed mindset in terms of my own capabilities, but I believe every child has the capacity to be a fantastic Mathematician, if they are given the opportunity and are encouraged to have the belief in the 'power of yet'.

A simple maths game where players must choose + - x or ÷ as quickly as possible to make the calculation correct. Play full screen at http://mathnook.com/math/games/quickmath.swf http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

Math applications (apps) for iPod Touch offer students and teachers are excellent ways to focus students in math classes. Although many Math Apps are loaded with ads and other distracting information, I have found several that are add free.

From addition words and elementary math to geometry vocabulary and every type of number word in between, students can find the right list right here with all the math definitions they need to be successful in math.