r/mathteachers

I am the math dept chair for a high school that has an associated middle and elementary school. 75% of our class comes from our middle school, but 25% comes from all sorts of different schools. It’s tough to match their curricula with ours and I had a thought that to fill the gaps I could assign the topics they seem to be missing on IXL or DeltaMath for the summer before they join us. It would be for 15 or so students, not sure how the pricing works (not really that interested in either for wider use). Anyone have any thoughts for me about this?

I taught high school math for a year, stepped away, and I’m seriously considering returning. One thing I never felt fully confident about was interpreting student reasoning in multi‑step algebra problems.

When you’re looking at a student’s work -- especially when the steps are messy, incomplete, or go in an unexpected direction -- what’s your process for figuring out why they made a particular error?

Do you look for familiar patterns?
Do you reconstruct their thinking step by step?
Do you start with the misconception or the structure of the work?

I’d love to hear how more experienced teachers approach this. And if anyone is open to talking through their workflow in a bit more detail (even briefly), I’d really appreciate it. Even a quick comment here would help a lot.

I'm going into my second year of implementing this Algebra 1 curriculum. Looking for ideas on more efficient routines.

Edit to add: I currently use All Things Algebra for their guided notes and practice/homework problems. Students do not have physical textbooks; everything is online and I have to print everything. I hate the student companion because I find it very incomplete. I then assign the MathXL problems from the relevant lesson in Savvas. Students complete the "Lesson quiz" as an entrance check for understanding. I write mid-topic quizzes with a mix of ATA and envision. Ultimately I'd like to eliminate the extra work on my part.

So I teaching HS math next year (alg 2 and precal) and am starting to plan ahead. I wasn’t planning on doing quiz review days. In my mind a quiz is a formative assessment that you use to see what you need to study for the summative chapter test. I do plan on having in class review days for chapter tests. It just doesn’t seem like a good use of time for quiz reviews but are students going to study outside of class?

I guess I’m trying to ask if other teachers do or don’t have quiz review days in class and thoughts on it.

Hi all. College professor here. For personal reasons, I am looking at doing a semester of teaching remotely in the near future. My only experience with teaching online was frantically improvising in Spring 2020, but with more time to prepare, I would like to do a much better job this time around. Any advice on things to read, borrow from, steal from etc. to do online math as well as possible?

Anyone have any advice, insight or info from their experience?

There are 9 days left of the school year. The only standard I have left to teach my 7th Graders is probability of multi-step events. My son is in the hospital so I’ll have a sub tomorrow.

I had planned to have students complete multi-step events using coin flips, dice, spinners, etc. But I didn’t ready any of these supplies on Friday before I left for the day, so if I went this route with a sub, I’d have to get a colleague to get those things ready.

With it being so near the end of the school year, it’ll be hard enough for a sub to have an easy experience as it is.

What would you do in this situation?

After 20 years in special education, (three years ago) I moved into math. I taught 7th and 8th grade for 2 years and math intervention last year. Next year I will be teaching 6th grade. I don’t have a lot of experience with 6th graders or 6th grade curriculum (used to pre-algebra). What is your best advice for someone new to 6th grade?

I've been teaching 29 years, next year we're moving to 85 minute block schedule. Was hoping someone could share there timeliness for precalc block and any insights about potential pitfalls to look for or avoid. Thanks

Hi everyone!

I’m curious what sites math teachers actually use when they need worksheets, practice sets, review packets, or quick extra problems.

There are so many options out there: Kuta, DeltaMath, Brainator, Math-Aids, TPT, CommonCoreSheets, etc. But I’m more interested in what people genuinely use in practice and why.

What I’m looking for:

• Easy to find or create targeted practice
• Good print quality
• Not too cluttered for students
• Covers middle/high school math well
• Lets you adjust difficulty or problem types
• Saves time compared with making everything from scratch

Also curious: do you usually prefer ready-made worksheets, worksheet generators, or building your own materials?

Thanks in advance! I’m trying to get a better sense of what actually works for teachers day to day.

Hi, everyone. I’m a college student studying math and have been made aware of the alternate route teaching program. I’m in NJ and after looking into it saw that a lot of districts look down on it due to a lack of student teaching. For anyone that has done alternate route, have you found that it made finding a job as a math teacher more difficult?

Hi Math Teachers -

I have a rising 6th grader who struggles with math.

I would say kiddo is at a solid 4th grade level with some material from 5th but still weak on long division, operations with fractions and decimals, mathematical reasoning, and overall consistency with getting to the correct answer.

If we had 6 weeks of time over the summer, doing 30 minutes of focused work a day, what would you suggest to really strengthen the foundation of math skills?

I am happy to purchase something. It does not have to be free.

They will be doing ALEKS math next year.

Thank you so much for reading and for taking the time to answer! Help is desperately needed!

Hello,
I’m on a math pilot committee and my district has chosen to pilot two programs, one of them being Imagine Learning Illustrative Mathematics. I work in a district with a lot of students below grade level in math, a heavy special education population, and a significant number of English Language Learners. I worry that this curriculum will be hard for them to access, but I wanted to hear thoughts from anybody who has used this curriculum and what your experience is like. Any advice is much appreciated! Thank you!

Hi everyone!

I’m a newer math teacher (middle/high school level) and I’m trying to improve the quality of the graphs I use in assessments, guided notes, review packets, and classroom handouts.

Right now I mostly use screenshots from random places or quickly sketch graphs myself, but I’d like something cleaner and more professional-looking.

I’m looking for tools/software/websites that:

• Make graph creation relatively fast
• Look good when printed
• Work well for worksheets/tests
• Let you customize gridlines, labels, colors, domains, etc.
• Ideally export nicely

I know about Desmos, but I’m curious what experienced teachers actually use in practice and what workflows save the most time.

Also — any tips for organizing reusable graph templates/materials would be super appreciated. I feel like I spend WAY too much time recreating graphs from scratch.

Thanks in advance!

Gambling among young people has been a huge problem the past few years with sportsbooks and Polymarket/Kalshi being legalized. I see our Probability and Stats unit as a great opportunity to bring awareness to this issue and teach my students about the dangers of gambling. However, it’s also gambling at the end of the day and I want to keep things in the classroom safe and appropriate. What are everyone’s thoughts on this?

I don’t know if this is the right subreddit for this. I’m 25, I’m a bit older starting know. Recently I’ve considered trying to become a math teacher and I’m curious if it’s something I should pursue. I’ve alway found math pretty easy, and I’ve enjoyed learning it on a more philosophical level. One thing I really enjoyed when learning calc 1 was explaining certain mathematics to my mom, some of which things that we take for granted and never truly learned in math education, from the fundamentals of what math is. I personally remember being younger and it’s made me reflect on what type of teacher I would want to be, and how I would treat the kids in the classroom and promote true learning. I’ve reflected a lot of my schooling and some of the mistakes made from my teachers(no defense) and I constantly think of ways of how they can be rectified. I realize a lot of this may sound overly idealistic but it’s just something that sort of excites me. Perhaps the bureaucracy neuters this to some degree, regardless I would like to understand more of the inner processes. Another thing selfishly is, I care a lot about the perception I get from others. Most of my life during my school years people told me o was less Intelligent, including teachers, and I guess I’m hoping to prove them wrong in some sort of way by becoming one and treating my students better than they treated me at times. I guess I’m wondering, what are some things should I consider in pursuing this and is it worth it for someone in my situation?

don't know if this is the right subreddit for this. I'm 25, I'm a bit older starting know. Recently I've considered trying to become a math teacher and I'm curious if it's something I should pursue. I've alway found math pretty easy, and I've enjoyed learning it on a more philosophical level. One thing I really enjoyed when learning calc 1 was explaining certain mathematics to my mom, some of which things that we take for granted and never truly learned in math education, from the fundamentals of what math is. I personally remember being younger and it's made me reflect on what type of teacher I would want to be, and how I would treat the kids in the classroom and promote true learning. I've reflected a lot of my schooling and some of the mistakes made from my teachers(no defense) and I constantly think of ways of how they can be rectified. I realize a lot of this may sound overly idealistic but it's just something that sort of excites me. Perhaps the bureaucracy neuters this to some degree, regardless I would like to understand more of the inner processes. Another thing selfishly is, I care a lot about the perception I get from others. Most of my life during my school years people told me I was less Intelligent, including teachers, and I guess I'm hoping to prove them wrong in some sort of way by becoming one and treating my students better than I was treated at times. Mind you, I have autism, and adhd, so I might struggle a bit with the social aspects of teacher which i recognize is the biggest part of the job, I’m just hoping overtime I can learn to get over that. I guess I'm wondering, what are some things should I consider in pursuing this and is it worth it for someone in my situation?

I’m starting my first year teaching this fall as a 5th grade math teacher, and I honestly feel pretty unprepared. My degree is in secondary social studies with minors in history and math, and I student taught 8th grade history last fall. I love middle schoolers, history, and math — I just wasn’t expecting to teach as young as 5th grade. I’ve never even observed a 5th grade classroom before, so I really don’t know what to expect from that age group.

The school is a low-income, high-needs, underperforming rural school in Mississippi with around 368 students total. I don’t mind teaching math at all — honestly, it seems easier to lesson plan for than social studies in some ways — but I’m nervous about the transition from secondary social studies to elementary/middle math.

What should I expect in terms of:

• Classroom management and behavior
• Student maturity level
• Parent communication
• Helpful teaching strategies
• Supplies/classroom setup
• Decor and organization
• Common mistakes first-year teachers make
• Anything you wish you knew before teaching 5th grade

Most of my experience is with 8th grade and up, so I’d appreciate any advice from people who’ve taught upper elementary or middle school math.