Skip to main content

From Overwhelmed to Empowered: How NCTM Resources Help Curiosity and Belonging in the Math Classroom



As a math educator, I know what it feels like to juggle everything from lesson planning, engaging students, grading, and trying to stay current with best practices. Some days it feels like we are balancing a tightrope of expectations all at once. But over the years, I’ve learned you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, and NCTM is here to helpAt this year’s NCTM Annual Conference, I’m excited to share how NCTM’s Classroom Resources can help transform the way you plan lessons, connect with students, and bring curiosity and belonging into my classroom. These tools aren’t just about saving time, they are about creating a learning environment where all students see themselves as mathematicians.
Reimagining Lesson Planning Through Curated Support

Like many teachers, I’ve spent countless hours searching for lessons that are both engaging and standards-aligned. What I love about NCTM’s Classroom Resources library is that it takes the guesswork out of that process. NCTM offers ready-to-use instructional plans, digital interactives, and inquiry-based tasks that invite students to reason, collaborate, and think deeply. From Notice and Wonder to Problems to Ponder, NCTM has a resource for you!For me, these resources help move students beyond procedural fluency to real mathematical understanding. They connect directly to the Standards for Mathematical Practice and align with NCTM’s Effective Teaching Practices, providing the structure and inspiration I need to design lessons that truly spark curiosity.

Centering Equity and Belonging in the Classroom

Creating a sense of belonging has always been at the heart of my teaching. I believe every student deserves to feel seen, valued, and capable in mathematics. By using rich, open-ended tasks from NCTM’s library, you can engage a wide range of learners and celebrate multiple ways of thinking.Pairing these lessons with Mathematical Language Routines (MLRs) and Notice and Wonder discussions has been especially powerful. These practices give students space to share their reasoning, build confidence, and develop a strong sense of mathematical identity. When students realize their ideas matter, they begin to see mathematics as a subject that includes—and needs—them.

Finding Strength in Community

Being part of the NCTM community has reminded me that teaching mathematics is never a solo endeavor. Behind every resource is a network of educators who are passionate about improving math education for all students. By sharing ideas, challenges, and celebrations, we strengthen our collective impact.

When I feel overwhelmed, I turn to this community, and the resources it provides—to re-center on why I teach: to help every student discover their voice, their brilliance, and their belonging in mathematics.

Join Me at NCTM!

If you’ll be at the conference, I invite you to join my session:
“Exploring NCTM’s Classroom Resources for the Secondary Math Classroom.”

Together, we’ll explore digital interactives, instructional plans, and equity-centered practices that can help us all reignite curiosity and connection in our classrooms.Let’s move from overwhelmed to empowered—because when teachers feel supported, our students thrive.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

AI-Resistant Authentic Learning Experiences: Creating Meaningful Learning Experiences in the Age of AI

AI-Resistant Authentic Learning Experiences: Creating Meaningful Learning Experiences in the Age of AI What if the best way to make learning AI-resistant isn’t to ban AI—but to make learning worth doing? I’m excited to share an article I co-authored with my fellow AMLE Teacher Leader, Marri Bayor, AI-Resistant Authentic Learning Experiences: Creating Meaningful Learning in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. As educators, we’re navigating a new reality. Students have unprecedented access to artificial intelligence, and it’s easy to focus our energy on restrictions, detection, and preventing misuse.  But what if we asked a different question? How can we design learning experiences that AI can’t replace? In our article, Marri and I explore why we believe the answer starts with authentic learning. When students are solving meaningful problems, collaborating, defending their thinking, creating something that matters, and connecting learning to their own lives, AI becomes a tool—not a s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Strategies for Building Culture Through Expectations in Middle School

As a member of the AMLE Teacher Leaders Committee, I recently had the opportunity to contribute to an article that became the foundation for a larger conversation about one of the most important parts of starting a new school year: building a strong middle school culture. Our Teacher Leaders group began by exploring the question: How do we establish expectations that build culture rather than simply manage student behavior? That conversation led to our AMLE article, Strategies for Building Culture through Expectations in Middle Schools. I was fortunate to contribute alongside fellow Teacher Leaders Megan Balduf, Marri Bayour, Corey Cohen, Ralph Covino, Beth Fabijanic, Laurie Rigg, Cheryl Robertson, and Kate Strein. But what I really appreciated about this process was the article was the beginning of the conversation and launched our first ever AMLE Teacher Talk round table focused on Setting Expectations and Norms in the New School Year. Expectations are more than just rules! Middle sc...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beyond the Graph: Building Data Literacy Through Classroom Routines

  Beyond the Graph: Building Data Literacy Through Classroom Routines Every day, our students encounter data. They see statistics in social media posts, sports highlights, advertisements, news stories, weather forecasts, health claims, and infographics. They are constantly presented with graphs, percentages, averages, rankings, and claims about what the numbers supposedly tell us. But being surrounded by data does not automatically make someone data literate. As mathematics educators, we have an opportunity and a responsibility to help students think more critically about the data they encounter in their daily lives by asking deeper questions about the meaning behind it. Questions like: Where did these data come from and who is the source? How were they collected? What does this graph show—and what might it hide? Whose perspectives are represented? Whose are not represented? What patterns or variability do we notice? Is there potential bias? And perhaps most importantly: What concl...
Post a Comment
Read more