Math Strategies: How To Make Math Fun For All Students

The educational landscape has always adapted to meet best practices, incorporate new technologies, and push students to achieve more rigorous standards. That can be especially challenging in math, a content area that requires differentiation.

The focus of math teaching strategies today is on tools and instructional methods that benefit all learners, no matter where they are in their math education. That can take a few different forms. 

It can look like meeting students where they are and scaffolding learning to elevate their math skills. It can also look like launching into lessons with engaging topics to tap into the benefits of productive struggle, especially when collaboration is at play.

The best way to teach math means students have access to materials that align with the real world to help them build critical 21st-century skills. The worksheets, sit and get, and drill and kill math teaching strategies of yesterday won’t help students connect with challenging math concepts today. Students benefit from interactive lessons that engage them in inquiry and create a connection between math and the world around them. This makes math more accessible and boosts engagement.

What’s the teacher’s role in all of this?  

Educators become more than a go-to resource for math students. They become facilitators who nurture student learning and autonomy. They pull back as necessary to build on students’ critical thinking skills. This may sound challenging, but with the right teacher support, a more engaged math classroom is more successful (and more fun!).  

Aligning classroom instruction to math standards ensures that teaching methods meet relevant standards and benchmarks. As a result, that alignment helps students gain the skills they need to boost achievement on standardized tests.  

This goes beyond teaching to the test, though. It involves adapting instruction to address diverse learning needs on either side of the learning spectrum. That means intervention for students who need additional practice and acceleration for students who’d benefit from a deeper dive into the material.  

Teachers are the most important part of the process, regardless of how you approach diverse learners and math engagement strategies. Instructional decisions in the classroom can help students achieve their full potential. Ultimately, aligning instruction to math standards with an eye on differentiation promotes equity and accountability, helping all students achieve their full potential. 

The Concrete, Representational, Abstract (CRA) model is an instructional framework that results in a deeper understanding of math concepts. The concrete stage comes first. This is where students use physical objects and a hands-on approach to explore new concepts and grasp foundational ideas. It’s a way to introduce students to the basics without overwhelming them. 

The representational stage transitions students to visual representations like drawings or diagrams to bridge the gap between concrete experiences and abstract thinking. Finally, the abstract stage focuses on symbols and numbers to solve problems. The result is a deeper understanding of concepts and a way for students to see patterns and relationships through a unique lens.  

CRA makes seemingly simple ideas more accessible to students and allows students across the grades to see math in a more engaging way. 

The best math instructional strategies can depend on the needs of your classroom, but there are research-backed interventions and math activities that benefit the majority of learners. These strategies support teachers’ challenging work of differentiation and engage students who may struggle or have difficulties connecting to math.

Math Journals

Math journals are valuable tools that serve as a visual collection of a student’s notes, questions, practice problems, and more. On the teacher side, they show students’ work and problem-solving processes as an additional data point for progress monitoring. For students, it’s a consolidated resource that can help them organize, clarify, and reflect on their thinking. 

In STEAM classrooms, personalizing math journals can make them even more engaging. Students can do this at the start of the school year to build a sense of community in the classroom. 

For Elementary Students: Give students time to come up with creative ways to solve math, even if it’s time to doodle in their journals. You don’t always need to hit the ground running, especially if you’re looking for math strategies for elementary students who may need additional coaxing.

For Middle School Students: For a more modern take, consider digital platforms that allow students to organize classroom notes into virtual notebooks. This is an easy way to make journals more accessible for students who benefit from tech supports or engage older students who may be more digitally savvy. 

For High School Students: Incorporate more written reasoning prompts to engage students’ math vocabularies and connect with literacy objectives. By this point, students should be able to explain their thinking using math vocabulary.

Math Stations

Anything that boosts active participation in the classroom has a positive impact on learning. Math stations offer dynamic learning opportunities through hands-on practice, games, and collaborative problem-solving. 

Stations also foster independence and self-directed learning, giving the teacher another way to differentiate instruction. Teachers can use math stations to provide targeted support and scaffold learning or provide advanced students with extra math challenges. They create an interactive, student-centered environment.

For Elementary Students: Stations or centers can accommodate diverse learning styles and needs, with a few built-in just for fun to give younger learners a brain break if needed. Look for math games, hands-on math lesson plans, and paper or virtual manipulatives to support more dynamic math instruction.

For Middle School Students: Brain teasers, problem-solving challenges, digital tools, and online math software are all engaging ideas for older students. Look for adaptive activities that are accessible for all of your students.

For High School Students: Create stations with complex, real-world problems that require critical thinking. Introduce multi-day stations that require peer collaboration and a higher level of thinking. 

Math Word Walls

Math word walls support students as they learn the language of math and helping them talk like mathematicians may help them feel like mathematicians, too. This can build confidence, empower students to talk about math in a more profound way and boost math test scores. 

Think about special accommodations for your multilingual learners, too. Word walls can be an important tool in supporting language development and comprehension for those students, especially when words are displayed in context. 

For Elementary Students: Incorporate more pictures or symbols as needed to represent math words. Activities like matching games or having the students illustrate their renderings of math words can reinforce what they’re learning as they build their math vocabulary.

For Middle School Students: Word walls for older kids can still be fun. Encourage their contributions to the wall by having them add terms or create visual aids. They can also create mini versions for their student journals.

For High School Students: Word walls for older students should be a helpful reference tool. Keep definitions concise but include more advanced terminology and formulas where appropriate. Include images of real-world applications for retention. 

Math Tech Tools

Incorporate digital tools and resources like educational apps, math games, interactive whiteboards, and online platforms to make learning more engaging and interactive. Many of these tools are adaptive, too, which means students on either side of the learning spectrum will have the opportunity to learn, be challenged, and engage with math. 

For Elementary Students: Wondering how to make math fun? Any lesson that lends itself to hands-on activities or interactive math is inherently more fun for students. Digital stories and videos can illustrate math concepts and offer cross-curricular connections. 

For Middle School Students: Consider tech tools that simplify complex concepts in a visual way. Interactive math apps, educational games, and virtual manipulatives all engage older students. 

For High School Students: Use math games, online simulations, and virtual tutors. Think about ways to use technology to apply math to real-world scenarios and allow students to interact with math beyond pencil and paper.

Math Nation, an online resource for middle and high school students, offers students 24-hour access to high-quality videos and engaging learning tools to help them boost their math progress.

Professional learning for teachers is an important part of a teacher’s personal growth and student success. Continuous learning helps teachers stay current with new strategies, technologies, and state standards to meet the changing needs of students. 

It can be challenging to find the time to invest in that personal growth, especially if you’re looking for district- or school-led training that may not be offered when you need it. Self-paced opportunities are a way to pursue professional learning when it makes sense for you. 

Programs through the National Institute for STEM Education (NISE) are another way to demonstrate areas of growth and strengths in the STEM disciplines. Once teachers demonstrate competency across the three focus domains, they earn a National Certificate for STEM Teaching. When paired with standards-based math curriculums, this level of professional learning is a proven driver of student achievement.

CASE STUDY:
Wilemon STEAM Academy in Texas pursued NISE certification as a school-wide initiative. The result on the educator side was a supportive environment where teachers were all learning together. The high-impact STEM instructional strategies they learned as a result translated to student readiness and an overall boost in performance on state tests.

By engaging in workshops and collaborative learning, teachers enhance their knowledge and boost their confidence in teaching challenging concepts. More confident teachers mean happier math classrooms. Teachers who talk about their continuous learning in their classrooms can also demonstrate the importance of lifelong learning to their students.

Teachers have many responsibilities in the classroom that go beyond lesson planning. A comprehensive curriculum that offers everything in one place, including progress monitoring and accessibility features, can free up needed time in the classroom.

At Accelerate Learning, we’ve made it our mission to create resources that teachers need to engage their students in challenging concepts. STEMscopes Math, our award-winning math curriculum, is a standards-aligned, adaptive, interactive platform that prepares your math students for tomorrow. 

We’re not just talking about the next grade level, either. Helping your students engage in a deeper understanding of math topics prepares them with the 21st-century skills they’ll need as future STEM leaders.