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Blog Posts

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Building Thinking Classrooms and EFFL: Can You Do Both?


How to incorporate Liljedahl's 14 teaching practices into your EFFL classroom.

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Redefining What it Means to Be Good at Math


How to broaden our definition of mathematical competence and why it matters.

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What's the Main Idea?


How having a clear focus can transform your lesson.

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When Am I Ever Going To Use This? - Part 2


When students ask “When Am I Ever Going To Use This?”, instead of focusing only on the content, look at the everyday skills the lesson teaches. Let's step through a full EFFL lesson and see how we teach all of these skills!

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10 Questions to Liven Up Your Math Classroom


Questions to open up discussion, extend students' thinking, and help students consolidate their learning.

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Why Won't the Math Medic Assessment Platform Grade Student Responses?


Everything you need to know about the features we DIDN'T include in the Math Medic Assessment Platform (and why).

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When Am I Ever Going To Use This?


When students ask “When Am I Ever Going To Use This?”, the best answer may not be when they will use the content. Instead, show them that inside of every lesson are skills they will need every day!

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Math Medic Assessment Platform FAQ


Our most helpful responses to the most frequently asked questions about the Math Medic Assessment Platform (MMAP).

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All About Mini Games


Everything you need to run mini-games in your classroom.

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Using Homework Questions to Extend Students' Understanding of Solving Equations


In this article we'll look at how six sample homework questions deepen, extend, and assess the conceptual learning done in in an Algebra 1 lesson.

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Math Medic Assessment Samples


Check out a sample homework assignment, quiz, and test from our Algebra 2 course.

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Assessment in the EFFL Classroom


How we use homework, quizzes, and tests to deepen and assess students' learning.

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Laying the Foundation for High School Math


Why establishing flexible thinking at the beginning of Algebra 1 is essential for long term success.

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Why We Should Embrace Inefficiency


Acknowledging that learning takes time when time is short.

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The Swiss Army Knife of Math


Find out what we think is the most versatile tool in mathematics.

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Teaching the Unit Circle WITHOUT Memorization


All you need are a couple of special triangles to find all angles and coordinates of the unit circle.

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Announcing Math Medic Foundation!


Math Medic Foundation has the mission of connecting students, teachers, and schools to resources that increase equitable access to high-quality mathematics education.

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Reframing Mistakes in the Math Classroom


How to respond to student errors in real time and cultivate a productive disposition toward mistakes

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There's more to Trig than SOH CAH TOA


Students can develop a deeper understanding of trigonometry by focusing on proportional reasoning.

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How to Turn any Worksheet into a Review Game


Ideas for combining practice and play on review days.

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Making Group Work More Effective - Part 2


Strategies for getting your students talking, collaborating, and upholding group work norms.

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Making Group Work More Effective -Part 1


Learn how to overcome the common obstacles to productive group work.

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Reviewing without Reteaching - Part 2


Here you’ll find a collection of our favorite review activities to help students synthesize the content and concepts from the semester and prepare for exams.

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Reviewing without Reteaching - Part 1


Why re-teaching may not be the best option for end-of-semester review, and actually may have some problematic effects.

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Tips for Prepping to Teach Your Next Lesson


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Choose the Right Contexts for Linear Systems


Help your students go deeper in their understanding of linear systems by choosing contexts that highlight the math, instead of complicating it.

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Build deeper understanding of lines through contexts


Spark students' intuitive understanding of slope and linear relationships through contextual questions.

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How to Debrief an EFFL Lesson


Understand the teacher's role in preparing for and facilitating an effective debrief of the EFFL activity.

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A Full EFFL Lesson in One Class Period


Are you having trouble getting through a full lesson in one class period? Here are some tips to make you more efficient.

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Using Questions to Help Students Construct Understanding


When getting ready to teach an EFFL lesson, many teachers worry: How will my students know how to do the activity if I haven't taught them yet? The key to students being able to complete the activity before instruction is in what questions you ask and how you ask them.

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Using Question Structures to Write Assessments


Write your own higher-level thinking questions with intentionality and efficiency.

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Mix Up Your Verbs


Assess deeper understanding by varying your verbs. In this blog post, we'll look at three categories of verbs and how to write appropriate questions at each level.

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Setting the Stage for a Successful New School Year


A collection of our favorite tasks, resources, and activities to start the school year off right!

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Establishing Norms in the Math Classroom


In this post we discuss our math and group work norms and how we introduce and uphold them throughout the year.

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How to Balance Concepts and Procedures in an EFFL Classroom


Let's take a deeper look at how we can use homework and assessments to assess conceptual understanding and build procedural fluency.

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Why Won't Mrs. Gallas Just Give Me Notes?


Research shows that students learn more when active learning rather than passive learning. This blog post contains an activity you can do with students to make them aware of why you teach the way you do.

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How to Use a Math Medic Answer Key


Math Medic answer keys are not just for solutions and correct answers. They are meant to be the official guide to teaching the lesson.

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How Do We Assign Homework?


In this post, we explain some of our philosophy around homework, with links to several resources you can use to create your homework assignments.

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Turn your old notes into an Experience First, Formalize Later (EFFL) lesson


How can you take your more traditional notes and turn them into an activity that students can engage in without your direct instruction?

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How to Design an Experience First, Formalize Later Lesson


We have explained how we teach using the Experience First, Formalize Later lesson design and also why this model is best for students. Here we will explain the ideas that we consider when designing these lessons.

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Why Teach Using the Experience First, Formalize Later Model?


In our previous post, we explained how we implement the Experience First, Formalize Later model in the classroom. In this post, we dig into the "why".

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Experience First, Formalize Later (EFFL)


Experience First, Formalize Later means that students are working collaboratively to think, to discuss, and to construct their own understanding of new content before the teacher helps students to arrive at formal definitions and formulas.

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