Guided Math Best Practices

Guided Math Best Practices combine Guided Math with current Math Best Practice Ideas.
1. Meets individual needs.
2. Diversifies for special education needs.
3. Scaffolds average students to algebra and story problem connections.
4. Challenges high achieving students with algebra and story problem connections along with extension activities.
5. Promotes mathematical thinking using Mathematical Process Skills.
6. Utilizes engaging, concrete, hands-on activities that promote mathematical understanding of concepts.
7. Incorporates daily spiral review.

Angela Bauer uses these Guided Math best practices and trains teachers to use them in a guided math format. Her teacher professional development workshops detail how to use these best practices in math in any classroom. The following video was created by North Shore School District 112 in Highland Park, Illinois after Angela Bauer had trained their Kindergarten through 8th grade staff.

Guided Math incorporates best practices from Eric Jensen. His book called Brain-Based Learning details many aspects of best practices to use for optimal student growth. Page 331 summarizes a list of these ideas. Guided Math uses many of these ideas. Here are just a few!

purposeful and consistent pre-exposure
multiple exposure & activation for 1-3 days
often rich with talking and activity
emphasis on context, meaning & value
learning is also action, movement
search for questions
immediate, dramatic feedback
mobility, face each other, partners, groups

Learn more about brain-based learning at www.jensenlearning.com

Guided Math also incorporates best practices from David Sousa and his book, How the Brain Learns Mathematics. On pages 126-127, David details that “the teacher should monitor the students’ early practice to ensure that it is accurate and to provide timely feedback and correction if it is not. This guided practice helps eliminate initial errors and alerts students to the critical steps in applying new skills.” Here are 4 guidelines he thoroughly discusses.

limit the amount of material to practice
limit the amount of time to practice
determine the frequency of practice
assess the accuracy of practice

Guided Math Best Practices incorporates math best practice ideas from the leading math and brain experts.

Here is a video after Angela held a follow-up workshop at NSSD 112. Monica transformed her classroom into a Guided Math class. Her students were learning at their own pace and at their own level. The engaging activities promotes thinking and questioning about math concepts. This thinking promotes mathematical understanding.

In conclusion, Guided Math Best Practices are helping to transform teaching because the real results are these practices are transforming students into mathematicians!