Math Ed Web Sites

Here are some web sites of interest to math educators. Feel free to contact me at kribs@uta.edu with suggestions or corrections. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not maintain any of the sites in the links below, nor am I or the University responsible for their content or opinions. I maintain this list only in the hope of providing resources for present and future teachers.

Standards and accountability, state and national

NCTM Principles and Standards (2000), http://www.nctm.org/standards/
NCTM Principles and Standards Illuminations, http://illuminations.nctm.org
This site contains many examples and illustrations designed to clarify the new standards.
National math and science standards (ENC), http://www.enc.org/professional/standards/national/
Links to the national math and science standards on the ENC page.
State Board for Educator Certification, http://www.sbec.state.tx.us
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, http://www.tea.state.tx.us/teks/ (click here for pre-K guidelines)
TAAS and End-of-Course Student Assessment Division, http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/release.htm
Includes actual TAAS exams and answer keys, in PDF format.
TExES information and preparation manuals, http://www.texes.ets.org
Contains PDF files of preparation manuals for new TExES exams.

Government and professional organizations

MAA, the Mathematical Association of America
Devoted to mathematics teaching and research, especially college-level teaching.
NCTM, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
The national professional organization for math teachers.
TEA, the Texas Education Agency
State agency responsible for K-12 education in Texas.
the U.S. Department of Education
National agency sponsoring education initiatives.

K-12 math curriculum materials

Professional journals, books and other readings

Teaching Children Mathematics, NCTM's magazine for elementary grades math teachers

Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, NCTM's magazine for middle grades math teachers

Mathematics Teacher, NCTM's magazine for high school math teachers

Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, NCTM's research journal

ERIC Database
The Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), a federally-funded national information system, includes a searchable database of articles and books on education.
The Educator's Reference Desk
Formerly part of AskERIC, this web site contains many resources for educators, including over 2000 lesson plans.
The Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM)
The Gateway to Educational Materials Online Catalog contains detailed descriptions of over 40,000 educational resources found on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites.

CGI
CGI geometry article, http://144.92.174.191/Publications/WCER_Highlights/Vol.6_No.4_Fall_1994/ Geometry_engages_students.html
This article presents a geometrical aspect of CGI.
CGI perspective, http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/content/cntareas/math/ma3cgi.htm
This page, taken from the Pathways site (see below), contains audio and text explaining CGI briefly, by teachers who use it.

Online resources for teachers

Learn NC has a page on conducting student interviews.

"Cool Math" by Karen, http://www.coolmath.com
Lessons, links, pictures, puzzles and fractals, by a math teacher. This is a favorite of most of the teachers who've browsed this list. A must-see. Coolmath now has spinoff sites http://www.coolmath4kids.com, http://www.coolmath4teachers.com, and http://www.coolmath4parents.com.
Cynthia Lanius/CEEE home page, http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/
A classroom math teacher and now the director of Rice University's Center for Excellence and Equity in Education (CEEE), she has lots and lots of math exploration pages, including A Fractal Geometry Unit, Geometer's Sketchpad Pinwheels, The Million $ Mission, Power Cards, Mathematics of Cartography, I Love Calculus, Fractions Lesson, Geometry Online, Artist turned mathematician, Algebra/Calendar Fun.
E-examples to accompany NCTM's (2000) Principles and Standards, http://standards.nctm.org/document/eexamples/index.htm
These electronic examples feature Java applets and discussion providing activities for children in K-12 classrooms.
The Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Mathematics and Science Education, http://www.enc.org
Math and science resources, including lessons and activities, classroom links, reform links, etc.
Internet Math Lessons Database, http://www.mste.uiuc.edu/html.f/resource.php
A database of math lesson plans for all grade levels involving computers and/or the Internet (includes a number of applets).
Lesson PlanZ, http://LessonPlanZ.com
Lesson plans for all subjects, pre-K--12.
Mathematics Archives, http://archives.math.utk.edu/
Teaching materials, software, WWW links organized by Mathematical Topics, and more. Searchable.
Mathematics TEKS Toolkit, http://www.tenet.edu/teks/math/
This site is intended to provide resources for implementing the mathematics Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) and for improving mathematics programs in Texas. The site is developed and maintained by the Texas Statewide Systemic Initiative (SSI), as the Texas Education Agency's designated Mathematics Center for Education Development. Includes "Clarifying Activities" for TEKS and a huge resource section.
Math Forum home page, http://forum.swarthmore.edu/
Numerous math and math education resources.
Math Forum - Ask Dr. Math, http://forum.swarthmore.edu/dr.math/
Students and teachers can ask math questions.
Math Learning Center at Portland State University, http://www.mlc.pdx.edu
The math education group at PSU produces some outstanding math curricula, including Bridges in Mathematics (K-2 curriculum), Box It Or Bag It (K-2 resource), Opening Eyes to Math (3-4 curriculum), Visual Mathematics/Math Alive! (5-8 curriculum), Math and the Mind's Eye (5-9 resource).
Math Stories, http://www.mathstories.com
This site has loads of story problems for use with all grades, classified by grade level, difficulty, etc.
Mega-Mathematics, http://www.c3.lanl.gov/mega-math/
Stories and activities for K - 12 students, presented by Los Alamos National Labs.
NCISLA, http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/ncisla/
The National Center for Improving Student Learning and Achievement in Mathematics and Science is a research center at the University of Wisconsin which does, and has done, lots of studies on how children learn math and science. Teacher resources include the CGI project materials, a digital (online) library of good math and science activities, and math and science curricula (not online).
Pathways to School Improvement, http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/pathwayg.htm
This site, sponsored by the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, provides a vast network of text, audio, video and web resources for all content areas. The math content area page is at http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/ma0cont.htm.
PBS Mathline, http://www.pbs.org/learn/mathline/
PBS Mathline has elementary, middle and high school math projects.
PIGS Space: Cooperative Networking, http://cspace.unb.ca/nbco/pigs/
Math (and other) lesson plans for grades 3 - 8, plus facilities for online student collaboration.
Quia (Quintessential Instructional Archive), http://www.quia.com
Contains activities, games, quizzes, tools for all ages, all subjects, and in 15 languages.
Teachers.Net Lesson Exchange, http://www.teachers.net/lessons/
Searchable database of lesson plans and games from around the world.
TERC, http://www.terc.edu
This non-profit educational organization has produced such outstanding products as the elementary math curriculum Investigations in Number, Data and Space and the DMI (Developing Mathematical Ideas) professional development materials. From their home page, click on "Mathematics Education" and then select the project of interest from the menu.
Texas Education Network (TENET), http://www.tenet.edu
The purpose of the TENET Web is to provide the most useful, up-to-date resources for the Texas education community, including teachers, administrators, parents and students. There are sections on News and Announcements, Opportunities for Educators, Resource Center, Educators' Forum, K-12 Schools on the Web, Customer Support, and About TENET.
Texas Instruments Educational Resources page, http://www.ti.com/calc/docs/resource.htm
Mostly related to technology (principally TI graphing calculators) in the classroom. You can also just try http://www.ti.com/calc/docs/
21st Century Problem Solving, http://www.hawaii.edu/suremath/home1.html
These Web pages provide examples of problems solved using reliable problem solving methods, discussion of the principles of reliable problem solving and an evolving encyclopedia of solved problems in mathematics, physics and chemistry. The main focus is on pre-college algebra.

Online resources for exploring math

Annenberg/CPB Channel, http://www.learner.org/channel/
This channel, available by satellite and on many cable systems, broadcasts educational programming, including many of the Annenberg/CPB videos showing exemplary math lessons.
Biographies of Women Mathematicians, http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/women.htm
Calculus graphics, http://www.math.psu.edu/dna/graphics.html
These are excerpts from a collection of graphical demonstrations developed for first year calculus.
The Center for Science Education at U.C. Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu
Has a wealth of science information, including lots of detailed lesson plans for all sorts of science lessons, especially astronomy.
The Fractory, http://library.thinkquest.org/3288/fractals.html
Learn all about fractals online. (Cool graphics.)
The Geometry Center (University of Minnesota), http://www.geom.uiuc.edu
Includes course materials, interactive web and Java applications, downloadable software, links, and lots more.
History of Math page, http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/mathhist/
This site has a timeline of mathematics, mathematicians, and important mathematical discoveries, with pages for each.
History of Mathematics Archive, http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk:80/~history/
Includes mathematician biographies, chronologies and more.
Interactive Mathematics Online, http://library.thinkquest.org/2647/
Online explorations of algebra, trig, geometry, chaos and make-your-own stereograms.
Martindale's 'The Reference Desk: Calculators Online', http://www.martindalecenter.com
The amount of information on this site is truly humbling. One tiny section of it, online calculators, includes links to all sorts of online calculators, for example: "The Lye Calculator will calculate the amount of lye (either sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide) required to convert the specified amount of fats and oils to soap."
Mathematical Quotation Server, http://math.furman.edu/~mwoodard/mquot.html
Mathematics Information Servers at Penn State, http://www.Math.psu.edu/MathLists/Contents.html
Mathwright Library, http://www.mathwright.com
For MS Windows only. The Mathwright Library is a free collection of interactive mathematics and science books that you bring to your own desktop from the web, and then read at your leisure. Once you join the Library by downloading their Library Player 2000, which operates the books on your computer, you may come here whenever you like to add to the private collection on your own computer, or to discuss ideas with other visitors to the library.
Online Geoboard, http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_172_g_2_t_3.html
Virtual geoboard applet.
PlaneMath, http://www.planemath.com/
Activities for students, related to aeronautics and math.
Yahoo's Math Index, http://www.yahoo.com/text/Science/Mathematics
Contains numerous math-related links.

Online readings for EDML 4372

learner.org has five online courses for K-8 math teachers called Learning Math each of which has a set of videos (select the course, then click on "Watch the Videos Online" and select the video)
an online version of the FDRP casebook from the ERIC database

for Week 2:

PSSM standards: overview
TEKS (see link in Standards section above): don't try to read the whole thing, but get enough of a look to develop an overall impression of what they're like and how (and maybe why) they were written
explore NCTM web page (see link in Govt/prof. orgs section above): just have enough of a look to get an overall impression (you can try their "About NCTM" link if you like)

for Week 4:

learner.org has two videos of children solving multidigit addition and subtraction problems, one using colored chips, the other using Digi-Blocks. Note how the children realize that the numbers in these problems are so large that they need some efficient grouping strategy, which leads them to use groups of ten. This is the motivation for students to move away from simple counting strategies toward place-value-based computational strategies.
a learner.org video showing middle school students converting from base ten to base five

for Week 6:

learner.org has a video on fractions and decimals in the numeration system of ancient Babylon
Sierra's Early Fraction Understanding videos

for Week 9:

the overview for the Representation standard in PSSM

for Week 10:

a learner.org video of young children describing shapes they can feel but not see

for Week 11:

a learner.org video of students measuring the area of two rectangles directly with two different sizes of square

for Week 12:

e-Algebra article 1 (article by Falkner, Levi and Carpenter)
e-Algebra article 2 (newsletter; first 2 pages most important)
e-Algebra article 3 (case study)
e-Algebra article 4 (performance task assessments, just have a look)

for Week 13:

click here

Online readings for BEEP 4311

Charlesworth and Lind
American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1999). Dialogue on early childhood science, mathematics, and technology education. Washington, DC: Project 2061.

an online version of the FDRP casebook from the ERIC database
videos on science education from learner.org (not exactly readings, but online)
learner.org also has five online courses for K-8 math teachers called Learning Math each of which has a set of videos (select the course, then click on "Watch the Videos Online" and select the video)
Here is a web page with several videos for preservice elementary science teachers.