Teaching Struggling Students in Math

Too Many Grades of D or F?

By (author) Bill Hanlon

Publication date:

12 October 2012

Length of book:

164 pages

Publisher

R&L Education

Dimensions:

237x161mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781475800685

In Teaching Struggling Students in Mathematics, Too Many Grades of D or F, Bill Hanlon provides examples and recommends highly effective and practical instructional and assessment strategies that classroom teachers can immediately implement and that school administrators can readily observe. These high yield strategies build on accepted practices and directly address the needs of struggling students. His no nonsense, common sense approach assists classroom teachers in organizing their instruction by connecting preparation and instruction to student notes, homework, test preparation, and assessments so students study more effectively. This results in increased student performance. Bill also emphasizes the importance of student-teacher relationships and the implementing a success-on-success model.

His emphasis on making students more comfortable in their knowledge, understanding, and application of math is demonstrated repeatedly with examples of how to introduce new concepts and skills by linking them to previously learned math and outside experiences. These linkages allow teachers another opportunity to review and reinforce skills or address student deficiencies. Teaching Struggling Students in Mathematics will help your student succeed in math.

Hanlon (director, Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program) outlines how teachers and school administrators might help students achieve in mathematics. Hanlon's "components of an effective lesson" include introduction, daily review, daily objective, concept and skill development and application, guided/independent/group practice, homework assignments, closure, and long-term memory review. This model is similar to other models that the author neglects to attribute to past instructional designers such as Madeline Hunter and Robert Gagne and Leslie Briggs. Hanlon stresses the importance of protocols and high expectations for student success; lesson preparation; effective use of instructional time; student note taking; making homework assignments worthwhile; test preparation; test administration; and nurturing student, parent, and administrator relationships, which affect student performance. The book includes examples of exercises that would enhance student learning and discussions of the appropriate uses of technology, variety and balance in the delivery of instruction, and the need to consider how student characteristics influence assessment. The author puts forward the steps for developing a department improvement plan, effective teacher supervision, and strong student-teacher relationships. The book would be enhanced by including a bibliography of research citations that support the practices discussed and links to further readings. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, research, and professional collections.