Mindset Mathematics: Visualizing and Investigating Big Ideas, Grade 8

Jossey-Bass, Wiley, 2020. — 272 p. — ISBN 9782019045098, 2019045095Engage students in mathematics using growth mindset techniques The most challenging parts of teaching mathematics are engaging students and helping them understand the connections between mathematics concepts. In this volume, you'll find a collection of low floor, high ceiling tasks that will help you do just that, by looking at the big ideas at the eighth-grade level through visualization, play, and investigation.
During their work with tens of thousands of teachers, authors Jo Boaler, Jen Munson, and Cathy Williams heard the same message -- that they want to incorporate more brain science into their math instruction, but they need guidance in the techniques that work best to get across the concepts they needed to teach. So the authors designed Mindset Mathematics around the principle of active student engagement, with tasks that reflect the latest brain science on learning. Open, creative, and visual math tasks have been shown to improve student test scores, and more importantly change their relationship with mathematics and start believing in their own potential. The tasks in Mindset Mathematics reflect the lessons from brain science that:
There is no such thing as a math person - anyone can learn mathematics to high levels. Mistakes, struggle and challenge are the most important times for brain growth. Speed is unimportant in mathematics. Mathematics is a visual and beautiful subject, and our brains want to think visually about mathematics. With engaging questions, open-ended tasks, and four-color visuals that will help kids get excited about mathematics, Mindset Mathematics is organized around nine big ideas which emphasize the connections within the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and can be used with any current curriculum.Low-Floor, High-Ceiling Tasks
Youcubed Summer Camp
Memorization versus Conceptual Engagement
Mathematical Thinking, Reasoning, and Convincing
Big Ideas
Structure of the BookNote on Materials
Manipulatives and Materials Used in This Book
Activities for Building Norms
Encouraging Good Group Work
Paper Folding: Learning to Reason, Convince, and Be a Skeptic
Paper Folding: Learning to Reason, Convince, and Be a Skeptic
Big idea 1: Moving ShapesWhat Does It Mean to Be the Same?
Pixel PuzzlesSlide It, Flip It, Turn It
Big idea 2: Zooming In and OutWhat Is Similarity?
Find the Fakes
Growing on a Grid
Big idea 3: Analyzing Proportional Relationships
Reference
Dropping the Altitude
Seeing Triangles under the Line
Stairway to Eleven
Big idea 4: Comparing Patterns of Growth
Squared Squares
Skip‐Counting Arrays
Stacking Pennies
Big idea 5: The Ins and Outs of FunctionsGrowing Functions
Getting Warmer!
The Functions of Near Squares
Big idea 6: Finding Patterns in the CloudsWhat's Going On in This Graph?
What's the Story Here?Creating Data VisualizationsBig idea 7: Completing the Real Number SystemSquare Sides
Between 4 × 4 and 5 × 5
The Hypotenuse Hypothesis
Big idea 8: Discovering PythagorasUnpacking Pythagoras
Pythagorean Triples
Approximating Square Roots
Big idea 9: Exploring the Geometry of Ice CreamBuilding Intuition about Volume
Comparing Cylinders
Scooping Up Volume
Appendix
Centimeter Grid Paper
Grid Paper
Isometric Dot Paper
Dot Paper