Classroom-Ready Rich Math Tasks, Grades 4-5

This book’s title reveals its promise. Classroom-Ready Rich Math Tasks offers teachers an abundant collection of practical challenges for engaging their students in building mathematical fluency and developing strategic reasoning—exactly what all Mathematics Standards expect.
-- Jay McTighe * McTighe and Associates Consulting *
I highly recommend this book, which provides a research-based framework for engaging in rich tasks that are connected to and build on previous mathematical understanding, relevant contexts, and students’ experiences and resources, as well as connecting to mathematics teaching practice. The 54 high cognitively demanding tasks included support the development of important mathematics norms, practices, and concepts.
-- Robert Q. Berry, III * University of Virginia *
This book answers the often-asked question ‘Where can I find good tasks?’ The authors have assembled a collection of rich mathematical tasks and provided guidance on how to plan and implement lessons around them in ways that will support opportunities for students to learn mathematics with understanding. This book is a game changer for 4th and 5th grade teachers who want their students to do math!
-- Margaret (Peg) Smith
What a resource! The thoughtful and thorough task-based lesson template guides teachers to effectively plan, facilitate, and monitor tasks. I’m delighted to see the focus on planning and on closing a lesson by making the mathematics visible. Read a few of the completed templates for the 54 tasks to recognize the value of this book.
-- Nora G. Ramirez * TODOS: Mathematics for ALL *
Classroom-Ready Rich Math Tasks, Grades 4–5 is an excellent resource for teachers, teacher educators, and professional development providers who want to engage students in high-level, cognitively demanding mathematics tasks. The book does an excellent job of explaining the why and the how of implementing doing mathematics tasks. To top it off, this book has a treasure trove of rich mathematics tasks for teachers to choose from.
-- Kyndall Brown * California Mathematics Project *
This book is a treasure trove of excellent mathematics problems, accompanied by instructional strategies to support students with opportunities to truly do mathematics and learn new concepts through problem solving. From reading this book, teachers can learn how to notice and amplify strengths in students’ thinking, promote productive struggle, and work toward equity when enacting these tasks. I also appreciated the authors’ ideas for enacting these tasks remotely. I would love to have been a student in a classroom with these tasks! -- Amanda Jansen * University of Delaware *
In my years of working with teachers in professional development settings, one thing they always ask me is ‘How can we find other great tasks like the ones we did in our session?’ Classroom-Ready Rich Math Tasks, Grades 4–5: Engaging Students in Doing Math is a goldmine for teachers and mathematics educators who want to expand their bank of ‘rich tasks’ with cognitively demanding problems that help students make sense of mathematics while building their sense of agency and identity as a thinker and doer of mathematics.
-- Jennifer Suh * George Mason University *
This book empowers teachers by focusing on critical considerations related to doing-math tasks to promote reasoning and sense making. The lesson plan templates provide detailed pathways and insights for teachers, coaches and administrators to leverage purposefully selected tasks to achieve the standards and engage students through effective instruction.
-- Farshad Safi * School of Teacher Education, University of Central Florida *
By integrating the latest research with a powerful teacher voice, the authors have written a must-read for every teacher of mathematics who wants their students to have a more motivating and powerful classroom experience. But the authors don’t simply argue that teachers include high-cognitive demand tasks in their teaching—they take the next steps and actually demonstrate how to plan for, implement, and support these tasks so each student can authentically engage in doing mathematics!
-- Matt Larson * National Council of Teachers of Mathematics *
We’ve all wondered, Where can I go to find high quality mathematics tasks? With useful guidance embedded in the 54 detailed task plans, this book successfully and rightfully responds to the complex mix of expectations that teachers encounter in their short- and long-term planning. The authors cleverly weave together so many considerations for instruction. Grab this essential resource and watch your students flourish and shine as mathematical thinkers and doers!
-- Sarah B. Bush * University of Central Florida *
Classroom-Ready Rich Math Tasks, Grades 4–5 is a practical, high-quality resource from trusted mathematics leaders. With dozens of classroom-ready rich tasks for thinking and doing math, it helps us understand how to maximize each task with guidance for launching, facilitating, gathering evidence, representing, and making connections during lessons. Most importantly, this tool serves to advance one’s practice by helping one think task selection and implementation. It’s time to do math!
-- John SanGiovanni * Howard County Public School System *
This book takes the mystery out of how to implement rich, engaging tasks. It supports teachers with appropriately facilitating productive struggle and formative assessment through strengths spotting, and includes loads of fantastically written tasks. No longer will teachers need to hunt for tasks to utilize in their classrooms or struggle with how to structure environments that promote deep learning. -- Natalie Crist * Baltimore County Public Schools *
This book is more than just a collection of top-notch ready-to-implement tasks—it provides powerful ideas for launching, facilitating, and closing the tasks in ways that will truly benefit your students and support their conceptual understanding of key mathematical ideas. To top it off, the lists of additional resources to further your professional learning are incredibly helpful.
-- Kevin Dykema * Mattawan Middle School *
Classroom-Ready Rich Math Tasks sets the stage for engaging students in doing meaningful mathematics, which leads to deep, well-connected mathematics learning. These tasks promote students as active mathematicians. Readers get classroom-tested tasks and formative assessments that help teachers monitor students’ learning, which can lead to better student growth.
-- Jonathan D. Bostic * Bowling Green State University *
Merging research and practice, this book details the what, why, and how of mathematics task implementation. Compiling over 50 worthwhile tasks, this valuable book offers practical suggestions for teachers to maximize their facilitation of effective student-centered learning experiences. This book is immediately useful as it integrates online strategies with considerations of equity so every child can access powerful mathematics experiences.
-- Courtney Baker * College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University *
We know how important mathematics is for student success in life—it truly is a gateway to practically any occupation or personal usage. This book is a phenomenal resource that supplies numerous examples of how to equitably get our students through the gateway.
-- Amber S. Cook * Baltimore County Public Schools *
For far too long, we have searched for great doing-math tasks that aligned with our standards and often found that finding a task alone was not enough. In this book, the authors have given us standards aligned doing-math tasks WITH a vital rationale for the pedagogical actions necessary for their successful implementation. At last, our field has a helpful resource for planning and enacting impactful instruction, building on the important connections between content and process, norms, teaching moves, and the doing-math tasks that fully engage students in meaningful learning.
-- Gabriel Matney * Bowling Green State University *
What a wonderful resource for how to successfully use tasks to authentically engage students in mathematical thinking and reasoning! Its concrete suggestions for planning and teaching task-centered lessons, including the question of alignment to standards to create a cohesive program of study, are a tremendous gift to us all. A great choice for a teacher book club or study group!
-- Linda Ruiz Davenport