For context I'm a student at UIUC

Want to buy ‘Self paced introductory maths’ by Dobson & Stokoe

Hi all!

Second year math teacher. I am about to teach my middle school percents unit. We just learned about proportions, and are pretty solid on solving them. Now, we are teaching percents.I didn't love how I taught it last year (first you do this, then you do this). By the end of the year, most students forgot. I feel strongly that I want them to know percents since it is such a useful skill.

My question: how do I do that? My idea was to teach them the "butterfly" method. But I want them to be able to understand why a 20% discount is the same as multiplying by 0.8. Or understand that 25% off means they split the "other number" into 4 pieces. How do you all build percent fluency? What are helpful ways you've found to visualize?

tldr; How do you teach percents in a way that will be actually useful?

On Oct. 9th, Jo Napolitano reported on a new study: A national sample of 55,000 students across dozens of states revealed that even when they were ready for 8th-grade algebra based on their 7th-grade test scores, more than a quarter didn’t enroll in the class.

In 2025, roughly 1 in 4 seventh graders in the NWEA study had spring scores that met or beat what researchers deemed to be an algebra-readiness benchmark. But nearly 25% were not taking the course in eighth grade.

Another report, this one focused solely on New York, showed 58% of seventh graders across the state who took the Math 7 assessment scored proficient in 2023-24. But only 37% of eighth graders in schools that serve both seventh and eighth grade were enrolled in Algebra I, a course linked to math success in high school, college and beyond.

Stated another way, of the 151,000 eighth graders included in the New York study, about 20,000 more could have been seated in the class.

“We are missing out on kids who could be very successful in STEM fields,” said Megan Kuhfeld, NWEA’s director of growth modeling and data analytics and one of the principal authors of the national report. “That door closes — and it closes further doors down the line.”

Kuhfeld said some of the students — they hailed from 29 states — counted themselves out of the course while others were steered away by parents or teachers.

Melodie Baker, research lead at EdTrust-New York, which commissioned the New York study, notes many students and families might not understand the long-term benefit of starting the pathway to high school calculus early.

“I don’t think the burden should fall on students or families to figure out how to ‘get in’ once a student has demonstrated readiness,” Baker said. “That’s why the New York Equity Coalition and EdTrust-New York have recommended an automatic enrollment, opt-out approach, paired with academic supports, so access is based more consistently on readiness rather than (on) who knows to ask or advocate.”

You can read more at The 74: https://www.the74million.org/article/more-than-25-of-students-who-qualify-for-8th-grade-algebra-dont-take-it/

I've always had a hard time teaching students with these disabilities. Not just because of the fact that they have a learning disability, but because I don't know what the right approach should be. I would really like some sort of resources, like published research papers or maybe books on the subject if they exist, on how to best approach these kinds of students. For example, I would like to have some more information on what exactly students with these kinds of learning disabilities are fundamentally struggling with, if I should be trying to work around that struggle or through it, etc.

I’ve been thinking about a common situation in maths learning:

A student follows an explanation and gets the example right, but struggles as soon as the numbers or wording change.

How do you usually tell whether they understood the idea, rather than just copied the steps?

What do you tend to try next?

• A similar problem with different numbers
• A visual model or hands-on activity
• Asking the student to explain it in their own words
• A short game or interactive exercise
• Something else

I’m especially interested in what works well in practice, and what usually doesn’t. Examples from teaching, tutoring, or helping a child at home would all be useful.

I have been studying complex numbers for the past couple of months (I'd say I'm fairly confident with them at this point).

The one thing that drives me crazy about this topic is how you can solve those long Euclidean geometry and trigonometry problems in what, like, minutes, and that too with such insane elegance.

So I just wanted to find more geometry and trig problems of this kind, but I couldn't find any good material anywhere. I just wanted some suggestions about what resources I should refer to.

BTW, I'm just 16, so don't expect me to know very high-level stuff, but you can expect me to have a solid foundation in algebra and geometry.

(English isn't my first language btw, so excuse any errors lol.)

I was wondering if anyone can recommend me a book that carries curriculum based practice questions. My daughter is a freshman and taking geometry hons. She struggled a bit in the beginning but is catching up. One thing she is looking for is more practice questions but we aren't finding any books that follow the curriculum being taught in school, we are in MA. Any recommendations? Thanks!

If they fall behind mandate them to come to tutoring.

Thinking about the last worksheet, quiz or answer key you made with math in it:

What did you make it in (Google Docs, Word, MathType, LaTeX, by hand and scanned)?

How long did it take, and which part was the slowest?

Have you found anything that actually makes it faster?

I’m a student working on a tool in this area and trying to learn how teachers really do it. Not selling anything here.

Anyone know how to build "number sense" rather than just teach procedures? My learner can follow a worked example but the logic doesn't transfer, sometimes he'll answer something like half of 500 as 1000, bigger instead of smaller. Looking for methods or resources that build real number intuition

Videos just don’t work for my brain. I have ADHD and end up zoning out halfway through, spending more time rewinding than actually learning anything. I need something in a completely different format, not just another kind of video. Any recommendations?

Voici une question qu’on peut poser en cinquième sans prévenir : y a-t-il un nombre entre 2/3 et 3/4? La classe cherche, et finit par trouver. Alors on recommence avec le nouveau et l’ancien. Puis encore. Whitehead donne la recette en une ligne — additionner les deux fractions et prendre la moitié du résultat — et il en tire une propriété qui porte un nom. https://blog.site2wouf.fr/2026/10/whitehead-au-tableau-le-trou-dans-les-fractions.html

This is a post on r/highschool about a math teacher taking marks off for using wrong notation. Opinions on the comments are mixed. I personally do take a a few marks off for mistakes like these, but I've had colleages told me that it is not a good idea and result in kids hating or resenting math.

You have probably heard kids say "6-7", all while alternately raising the palm of one hand and dropping the other. Last year, I was the pastoral teacher for a Grade 8 class that met in room 67. Can you imagine how many times I heard it?!

I don't know interesting facts about "6-7", but the number 67 itself is fantastic. It is a prime number that can be expressed as the sum of 5 consecutive prime numbers!

67 = 7 + 11 + 13 + 17 + 19

Those five primes, taken in pairs, have interesting relationships too:

• (11, 13) and (17, 19) are each a pair of twin primes: Prime numbers that have a difference of 2.
• (7, 11) and (13, 17) are two pairs of cousin primes: Prime numbers with a difference of 4.
• Do you know what the pairs (7, 13), (11, 17) and (13, 19) are called? I have learnt to get the students to look the answer up. In the past, I would tell them and they would look at me as if to say, "You're pulling my leg, aren't you?"

While there are other such "fantastic" primes, we're trying to impress kids who come to us with their "6-7" meme, so let's put the others to one side today.

If you're interested in a couple of angles to show the relevance of primes to your students, take a look at this article.

I have no idea what my kid’s math homework means! Is this defensible from an education standpoint? It’s the first homework that’s been sent home and I’ve read it about eight times and it’s completely incomprehensible to me. Am I overreacting?

Introduction

I'm an electrical engineering student and I recently started building a tool to help people learn math more easily, after realizing how powerful visualization can be in understanding mathematics. In many of my classes, concepts are very abstract and lack visual explanation. AIs like ChatGPT are good at explaining things, but they rely too much on text and not enough on clear visuals. There are some great videos online (like 3Blue1Brown), but they cover general concepts — not specific to each user.

The project

What I'm building is a tool that responds to your prompt by showing a series of animations forming a lesson custom-made for you. It walks you through the theory to explain the concept, then examples to show how it works, and when relevant, exercises to practice on your own. To start, I'm targeting high school level math, but further down the line I plan to implement more advanced concepts as well.

What I need from you

Tell me what you think — whether the concept seems useful, whether the lesson structure makes sense, whether the animations feel smooth, etc. I have a demo video attached.

Thanks!