The Next Step: Today's Methods for Today's Math [Hardcover]

This book is written on the behalf of mathematics teachers who have been asked to teach more conceptually while simultaneously motivating more students of all ability levels to willingly embrace further upper level mathematics content and courses. This is a BIG ASK! Math teachers are being expected to overhaul their current teaching approach. Can teachers be expected to embrace this crusade alone, isolated in a classroom?



Principals are charged with leading the way. They must provide the opportunities and resources necessary for effective teacher collaboration. After reading this book, a principal will comprehend the enormity of task each mathematics teachers faces and learn what must be done to help. School leaders will be able to design a growth plan based on a plethora of collaborative approaches. Mathematics teachers will experience the assistance they have desperately needed.

Dr. James Freemyer was a high school mathematics teacher for eight years, a high school principal for seventeen years, chair of a graduate education program for eight years, and currently teaches research statistics and organizational change at Indiana Wesleyan University in a doctoral program in leadership.

Three decades have passed since the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics released its initial standards for teaching mathematics. Yet the controversy stemming from these recommendations continues, so teachers and schools are still debating how to effectively meet the needs of their mathematics students. Freemyer (Indiana Wesleyan Univ.) here builds on the assumption that change from the traditional approach is strongly needed, and that K-12 mathematics education must adopt a student-centered focus based on conceptual teaching, collaborative learning, and meaningfully challenging investigations. This is not a how-to book full of classroom lesson plans, but rather a guideline for what school leadership must do to initialize and support such change. IncludinlÓ'