With the aid of white boards, teachers can use this visual instructional strategy to chart their students' progress. After a mathematics lesson, educators can give their students a quick quiz on the day's math skills. The kids can write their answers to the questions on the white boards and then hold them up over their heads for the teacher to see. With a scan around the classroom, a teacher can get a quick analysis of what topics the students comprehend versus topics that may need additional review.
Teachers can have their students help each other by grouping them in pairs and giving them a worksheet to finish together. By working through math concepts together, the kids can communicate with one another on a peer-to-peer basis. This instructional strategy focuses on having students teach one another, which can reinforce their own understanding of math concepts and practices. Another benefit of this strategy is that it shows students how to be accountable for their own progress in learning math.
Turn the tables on your students by assigning them the responsibility of teaching the class a mathematical concept. Divide the classroom into four groups and give each group a math lesson to learn. Once the group feels confident in their lesson, they can teach it to their peers. This instructional strategy puts students in the place of a teacher and requires the kids to answer math questions their classmates may have. The benefit of this strategy is that students can feel successful with their ability to teach their peers about math.
Younger elementary students can learn introductory math skills with physical math strategies. Gather objects such as plastic game pieces, dice or other small tokens. Give each student a handful of the tokens for a math lesson. Teach the kids simple addition and subtraction by showing them the physical math with the tokens. By actually seeing the math in front of them, youngsters can see how addition and subtraction work. This instructional strategy gives kids the tools they need to learn how to visualize math by seeing it in front of them first.