Teaching Struggling Students In Math

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Description

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.

Review: 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. CHOICE Teaching Struggling Students in Math by Bill Hanlon gives research-based best practices for beginning and experienced teachers...This book is an easy-to-read, invaluable resource for both teachers and administrators.

Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School William Hanlon get's the math. His descriptions of how teachers can and should develop students' deep mathematical understanding is in perfect harmony with the expectations of the Common Core State Standards. -- Eric Johnson, Director, K12 Mathematics,Clark County School District It would be great to say I thought one chapter was the most valuable, but every chapter is filled with practical actions and strategies for teachers to use with their students along with why these practices are important and how they fit into an overall plan for professional preparation.

Bill Hanlon's book is really a guide for effective teaching and the principles of planning, teaching, and establishing positive relationships with students can be applied to any discipline at any grade level. In addition to directly addressing how to change a teacher's approach for struggling students, Hanlon's book easily becomes a template for administrators or other evaluators to understand exactly what to look for during a classroom observation, what questions to ask of the teacher prior to the lesson and again, following the lesson.

Perhaps more important, those guided conversations become rich with opportunities for improvement based on the hundreds of ideas, tips, and strategies that are outlined in every chapter. Teachers of Struggling Students: Mathematics is a valuable tool for current teachers and administrators, but could easily be used as a text in a methods class for students at university studying to become teachers. -- Rebecca Johnson, Assistant Principal, Squalicum H.S, Bellingham, WA What makes the recommendations in the Teachers of Struggling Students so beneficial is they are built on highly effective and accepted instructional and assessment strategies and refines them to meet the needs of struggling students.

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