RESOURCES FOR MATH TEACHERS

RESOURCES FOR MATH TEACHERS

I. On-Campus Sources

The UTeach Resource Center has some resources for math teachers. Some that are particularly recommended:

Connected Mathematics. This is a carefully developed middle school curriculum that includes of activities to help students learn concepts. The teacher's guides give tips on where students may have difficulty, how to organize classroom activities, and how to assess student progress.

Interactive Mathematics Program (IMP). This is a four year, project based secondary math curriculum. See more on the IMP web site below.

Mathematics: Modeling Our World is a project based four year secondary curriculum published by the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications (COMAP). See more on the ARISE website below.

The Mathematics Teacher is the main journal for secondary math teachers. Copies are put out along with the journals for science teachers. (See more information below about the online index or subscribing.)

The UT libraries subscribe to the following journals for math teachers: The Mathematics Teacher (Secondary), Teaching Mathematics in the Middle School (Middle grades), and Teaching Children Mathematics (Elementary grades). These journals (all published by the NCTM-- see below) are a good source articles and activities for math teachers. Each journal has an online index. You can get to it by going to http://www.nctm.org/publications/index.htm#journals, then linking to the journal you wish to use, then to either "index" or "archive." Only a few articles are available online, however.
Try asking your math instructors. Here are some math instructors and subjects they might be able to give you some ideas on:

Dr. James Daniel (jimdaniel@mail.utexas.edu): Applications of math to actuarial science (Actuarial science is the mathematical analysis of future financial risk, including insurance and retirement and other employee-benefit plans.)

Dr. John Gilbert (gilbert@math.utexas.edu): Geometry

Dr. John Luecke (luecke@math.utexas.edu): Statistics

Ms. Diane Radin (radind@math.utexas.edu): Geometry

Dr. Ben Rhodes: (rhodes@math.utexas.edu): Probability, statistics, engineering applications

Dr. Frank Shirley (shirley@math.utexas.edu): Math and music

Dr. Martha Smith (mks@math.utexas.edu): Geometry, Statistics, Algebra, Math and the Environment, Math Models (also has some resources that can be borrowed)

Dr. Michael Starbird (starbird@math.utexas.edu): Calculus, thinking mathematically, bar codes, geometry, topology, interesting things about numbers, infinity, chaos, fractals, chance, and various other topics. (See the website for his book Heart of Mathematics for some ideas.)

II. Web Sources

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) is the national professional organization of math teachers. Their website is at www.nctm.org. From there you can follow links to join the NCTM (student membership is $32 and includes a subscription to one of their three journals for teachers mentioned above), to read parts of the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (which presents a vision of good mathematics teaching), to their catalogue of educational materials, and to lots of other information, activities, and products supporting the Principles and Standards.
The Texas Mathematics Teks Toolkit has links to classroom activities and other resources for math teachers.
The Math Project Journal http://www.mathprojects.com/lessons.asp has project- and problem-based lesson plans to download.
The COMAP curriculum Mathematics: Modeling Our World
Problems With a Point is a resource for teachers who use, or are beginning to use, a problem-centered approach. Problems are classified by topic, time required, suggested technology, required mathematical background, and habits of mind that students develop or use as they work.
The Mathematics Assessment Resource Service (MARS) has problems that can be used for both learning and assessment.
The Interactive Mathematics Program (IMP) is a project based secondary math curriculum developed by funding from the National Science Foundation.
The Core-Plus Mathematics Project is a comprehensive Standards-based three-year high school mathematics curriculum for all students, plus a fourth-year course continuing the preparation of students for college mathematics.
The Math Forum has lots of links to math topics, and includes an Ask Dr. Math feature if you can't find what you're looking for. In particular, the Teacher Exchange has links to lessons and other resources for teachers. The Problem Library has many problems that can fit will into a project-based unit.
The Quantitative Environmental Learning Project has links to data and other ideas helpful for teaching several math concepts around an environmental theme. Math data sets include linear, exponential, logistic, power, and periodic scatterplots as well as histograms and other univariate data. Each data set is annotated with background science and mathematics information, and may be downloaded in one of four common formats (RichText, Excel, Text, Minitab), or exported WebStat.
PBS Mathline has lesson plans (including teacher's guides) to download and video clips of classroom teachers.
SEQuaL has links to lessons including Origami Frogs, The Wave, and French Fry Frenzy, as well as links to sites with resources for K-12 statistics.
Symmetry Around the World was created by students in Sydney, Australia. It includes definitions of various types of symmetry, plus lots of examples.
Cynthia Lanius' Mathematics Lessons that Are Fun! These are from a project at Rice University in Houston, so are mostly designed to fit the TEKS. Most include Teachers' Notes.
See more math links on this web site, including the Miscellaneous Math Links and the links from many individual course pages. (Click here to get links to individual course pages.)