In an earlier post, I announced my forthcoming book. It’s a resource for secondary teachers who work with math students who receive special education services.

I had the opportunity to write an informative preview in NCTM’s journal, Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK-12. If you’re an NCTM member, it’s in the July 2023 issue. I get to tell the story of one of my students who had spent years in school learning that he wasn’t successful at math. My co-teacher and I learned a lot as we worked with this student, and I get to share some of what we learned in the book.

NCTM has been a strong advocate for teaching math for success outside of the classroom by building students’ conceptual understanding. Research shows that math classrooms do feature rich conceptual instruction such as hands-on concrete learning, student discourse, and an emphasis on reasoning. However, the same cannot be said for math classes that serve students with IEPs. There are several historical and pragmatic reasons for that contrast, and I hope my book can give teachers strategies to make rich, conceptual math instruction more accessible to all students.