This page has been updated to reflect significant updates with the book.
I wrote a book for Stenhouse Publishers that’s coming out this Fall. It’s called Necessary Conditions: Teaching Secondary Math with Academic Safety, Quality Tasks and Effective Facilitation. You can just call it #NecessaryConditions for short.
The trajectory of the book shifted throughout its writing. Honestly, it began as a deep-dive into Problem-Based Learning. Then it morphed into a systems-alignment centric text. Eventually, it focused on what I consider the three pillars of a successful math experience:
- Academic Safety – the social/emotional state of a student and her self-regard as a mathematician,
- Quality Tasks – the thing that students are doing, working on, and/or creating,
- Effective Facilitation – the short- and long-term moves that promote mathematical thinking and sensemaking.
The book explores each of these pillars in isolation and how each interacts with one another. In short, it’s an attempt at positing a math pedagogy.
Throughout the book, you’ll see specific examples of lessons and routines that promote each of the three elements. Subsequent chapters deal with everything from lesson planning to assessment to continuing your learning as a professional.
The appendix is rather hefty with sample lessons, checklists, biographies of mathematicians, suggestions of what to read/watch next, and more. I attempted to make the book as practical as it is substantial.
The coolest part? The great Fawn Nguyen wrote the forward. Fawn is one of the best teachers I know and has devoted her life to making math more accessible, more rigorous, and more fun. And if there’s anything that surpasses her commitment to quality instruction, it’s her relentless commitment to making sure her students believe in themselves as mathematicians.
Here is a link to the pre-ordering page from Stenhouse. Stay tuned for more updates as the publication date approaches.
emergent math 