GRIT Students in your math classroom work on new, challenging material. For those students who struggle, you may notice that some are quick to give up, while others embrace the challenge and keep working in pursuit of understanding. You may accept this as simply differences in personality. Some students can stick with it, and some can't: that's just how it is... Wait... Grit, or the ability to persevere in the pursuit of a goal, is a characteristic that can be nurtured and embraced by everyone. By promoting the benefits of grit, you are embracing a key component of growth mindset. Watch this marvelous Ted Talk by Angela Duckworth, where she discusses a common trait among successful learners
Connecting the Dots You've used Symphony Math in your math classroom. Your students are using the program consistently, and they are making progress through the Stages. You look at your Dashboard, and maybe print out some materials for struggling students. But for the most part, Symphony Math is just another online program, and it hasn't made it's way into your every day teaching. Wait... Like all effective interventions, technology should promote and improve the use of 'best practices' in our classrooms. In Symphony Math, our 'best practice' is providing different ways to visualize the Big Ideas in number sense. We do this by modeling math in many different ways: dot cards, number bars, num
