Math: Facilitating Relevant and Engaging Math Instruction

Educators continue to share tools for facilitating relevant and engaging math instruction as they discuss their approach to addressing why math matters to students and the importance of making math feel engaging for students.

  • “This year, I want a better answer for the ‘why does this matter?’ question students ask. I mean, let’s be honest — far too often the answer is, ‘because you’ll need it next year.’ Not good enough.” —High School STEM Teacher in Manitoba
    • “I try to, as often as possible, emphasize how math is a tool that helps predict and make decisions.  Individual skills are hard to justify, easier to justify mathematics as a whole.” —Middle School Math Teacher in New Jersey
      • “I struggle with the individual skills too — how do I give relevance to polynomials, for example?” —High School STEM Teacher in Manitoba
      • “That’s why I emphasize the POWER OF MATHEMATICS.  Gather data, look for patterns, pick a model, predict what will happen in the future.  Pretty powerful IMO!” —Middle School Math Teacher in New Jersey
    • “I post this [math mindset chart] in my classroom every year before the school year starts. We discuss it as a class several times over the first few weeks and then return to it throughout the year.” —Middle School Math Teacher in Virginia
    • “I am a teacher educator, & one of my students did a great project last year where she had her students set specific goals around mathematical thinking skills – skills they bring to all math. She helped them see the underlying principles & purposes of math instruction. It was great!” —Educator in Pennsylvania 
    • “I’m wondering about turning the question around…WHY do you think it matters? Maybe if students had a chance to do some research around the why of what they’re learning, they may be more apt to want to learn it. Just thinking out loud…” —Instructional Coach in Wisconsin
    • “And this is where Rehumanizing Math comes in.” —Math Teacher in Indiana
    • “Nothing in this life actually inherently matters beyond the meaning we assign it, so, how can we help students look inward and make math meaningful…to THEM?” —Math Educator in Ontario
    • “Without trying to sound preachy to the student, I say that sometimes math is valuable and sometimes it is beautiful. Sometimes both.The purpose of math class is to develop the skills that enable us to see math’s value and beauty.” —Math Educator in California
    • “To me, it’s all about enduring understandings–truths that are transferable to other math topics, other subjects, and outside-of-school contexts that affect students right now. And most of all, it’s about proving, re-proving, and calling to mind these truths throughout the year.” —Educator in New York
    • “As a math teacher, I would share that some of the things we learn are to help us use our brains in different ways. Some of the skills we will learn are to help build flexibility with thinking in numbers.” —Middle School Principal in Florida
    • “In my opinion this is one of the biggest barriers to student engagement. If they don’t see the ‘why’ of what they are learning they will deem it not important. It is imperative to provide a goal/objective for the lesson as well as a rationale (beyond b/c it will be on the test).” —Teacher, N/A
  • “Found in my notes in my phone ‘The purpose of math class is NOT to be prepared for more math classes.’ Discuss.” —Math Teacher in Pennsylvania
    • “It is sad if we think that’s the purpose of math. Every year in the first couple days of school, I would explain to my students exactly why we learn math. But I teach elementary, and I don’t know about precalculus!” —Math Educator in Texas
    • “Which renders moot the common ‘next year in xxxx class’ response to ‘when am I going to need this?’” —Math Teacher in New Hampshire
      • “@saravdwerf had a great slide that she shared @PCTMpctm in 2022 during her keynote on the purpose of math class. I can’t recall everything that was on it though. Looking for patterns and reasoning to generalizations was part of it.” —Math Teacher in Pennsylvania
  • “What makes math engaging? Some argue relevance. But is it really a ‘real-world problem’ that these sisters know the difference of their speeds but don’t know how fast they were going? Probably not. So I’d argue this problem isn’t actually all that relevant.” —High School Math Teacher in California
    • “Maybe it’s that math is useful to get the right answer efficiently? Well, another teacher shared she got the answer (likely much more quickly than I did) with guess and check. So advanced algebra skills are totally unnecessary here; the complex math I did was not the best tool.” —High School Math Teacher in California
    • “Honestly, if all my teacher talked about was my first solution, I wouldn’t have been all that interested in this problem beyond that. What made it interesting to me was investigating and connecting different solution approaches, even misguided ones, to each other.” —High School Math Teacher in California
    • “Discussing with other people and considering different ideas, that was the fun part (for me). Math can be social and collaborative, and, when it is, it can also be engaging in and of itself. At least, that’s the case from my perspective. I’d love to hear yours.” —High School Math Teacher in California