Making Math Connections: Using Real-World Applications With Middle School Students

Students often fail to make the connection between "school math" and their everyday lives, becoming passive recipients of isolated, memorized rules and formulas. This remarkable new resource will help students become active problem-solvers who see mathematics as a meaningful tool that can be used outside the classroom.

Hope Martin applies more than 40 years of teaching experience to developing a myriad of high-interest, meaningful math investigations. Using a teacher-friendly format, she shows educators how to integrate into the math curriculum engaging, everyday topics, such as forensics, natural disasters, tessellations, the stock market, and literature.

This project-based resource encourages cooperative, interactive learning experiences that not only help students make connections between various math skills but also make important connections to the real world. Aligned to NCTM standards, these mathematical applications are broken down into complete units focusing on different topics. Each chapter includes:

• Background information on the topic
• Step-by-step procedures for math investigations
• Assessment strategies
• Journal questions
• Reproducible worksheets
• Additional related readings and Internet Web sites

By increasing their awareness of meaningful everyday applications, students will learn to use math as an essential tool in their daily lives.

Students often fail to make the connection between "school math" and their everyday lives, becoming passive recipients of isolated, memorized rules and formulas. This remarkable new resource will help students become active problem-solvers who see mathematics as a meaningful tool that can be used outside the classroom.

Hope Martin applies more than 40 years of teaching experience to developing a myriad of high-interest, meaningful math investigations. Using a teacher-friendly format, she shows educators how to integrate into the math curriculum engaging, everyday topics, such as forensics, natural disasters, tessellations, the stock market, and literature.

This project-based resource encourages cooperative, interactive learning experiences that not only help students make connections between various math skills but also make important connections to the real world. Aligned to NCTM standards, these mathematical applications are broken down into complete units focusing on different topics. Each chapter includes:

• Background information on the topic
• Step-by-step procedures for math investigations
• Assessment strategies
• Journal questions
• Reproducible worksheets
• Additional related readings and Internet Web sites

By increasing their awareness of meaningful everyday applications, students will learn to use math as an essential tool in their daily lives.

Hope Martin is an innovative mathematics teacher with over 40 years of experience. Having worked with children in elementary, middle school, and high school, and with teachers in local universities, she is currently a private consultant facilitating workshops across the United States and Canada. Hope, who was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, began her teaching career in Skokie, Illinois and obtained her Masters Degree in Mathematics Education from Northeastern Illinois University. Hope's personal experiences and knowledge of educational learning theories have convinced her that students learn mathematics more effectively when they are active participants and see its relevance to their own lives.