The missing link: essential concepts for middle school math teachers ENC#: ENC-019737 Series: Annenberg/CPB Professional development workshop. Edition: Closed-captioned. Publisher: Annenberg/CPB Date: 2000

The eight videos and guidebook in this kit are designed to help middle school teachers increase math content knowledge in four areas and expand their teaching style. The materials were developed in response to teaching and learning challenges identified by the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The kit highlights ways teachers can use hands-on problems that involve students in their own learning and demonstrate how math is used in the real world. The workshop guide describes how to present the videos in either a two- or four-hour workshop format. Also available is a web site with supporting material and links to online resources. Each of the four content areas (proportionality, functions, angles and polygons, and sampling and probability) is featured in two videos. In the first video for each content area, a master teacher and a workshop guide lead a group of learner teachers through hands-on investigations. The viewer then sees how the teachers present the hands-on investigations in their middle school classrooms. In the second video the viewer sits in on a studio discussion as the teachers reflect on their experiences and consider new instructional and assessment techniques. For example, in the videos focusing on proportionality, the learner teachers are introduced to the concept of scale factor, use scale factor to enlarge and shrink figures, and determine how scale factor affects side lengths, angles, perimeters, and area. The master teacher explains how to develop scoring methods or rubrics for assessing student work in the scale factor investigations. The teachers, working in groups, practice using the rubrics they developed with samples of student work. Finally, the teachers work together to create new problems to deepen their students' understanding of proportionality and similar figures. (Author/JRS) ENC-019737

Grade(s):
6 7 8

Contributor(s):
A Plus Communications; Lavine Production Group;