When am I ever going to use math?

This is a question that students have been asking math teachers for years. Although answers such as "It will increase your problem solving skills" or "You'll need it in college" may be true, such responses fail to motivate most students. Wouldn't you like to show students how the math they are learning will benefit them on a personal level? Now you can.

Arithmetic I


Fractions, Percents, and Decimals I


Linear Functions I


Calculus I


Periodic and Piecewise Functions I

Make It Real Learning workbooks each concentrate answering the question, "When am I ever going to use this?" Each workbook also has a mathematical theme, such as "linear functions", so that you can find materials on the appropriate level for your students.

The workbooks contain activities or problem situations taken from real-life, with real data. Some examples of the situations are: cell phone plans, autism, population growth, cooking, borrowing money, credit cards, life spans, music downloads, etc. etc. As students work through the problems, they can use the math skills and concepts they have learned in their math curriculum (such as the concept of average or graphing), and apply those to a situation from real-life.

Each activity-lesson in the book contains several questions about the situation, starting with basics and going into more in-depth evaluations, and should be adequate for one-two complete class periods.

Why does that benefit you, the teacher? It will motivate the students far more than dull, boring word problems from the textbook. It will show students how mathematics is truly USEFUL. Also:

• The problems are written by an experienced math teacher (Frank Wilson)
• The problems are matched to the learning objectives of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). This means that the concepts and skills required to complete the problems ARE found in typical middle and high school mathematics curriculum. You can simply replace some of the problems in your textbook with these real-life scenarios.
• These activities are excellent to be used in a small-group setting.
• Typically, the activities contain challenging parts and therefore allow students to practice real problem solving - not just apply knowledge from textbook examples to other almost identical problems.
• Gifted students can enjoy the challenge of solving all the questions on their own.

These books are suitable for various grade levels - please see the list below. Many of them suit best high school math such as algebra 1, 2, or precalculus, but several books also are perfect for earlier grade levels. All books include complete solutions to all activities and problems. Please note that Make It Real Learning workbooks do not contain the instruction or explanations of the concepts.

You can download a FREE activity sampler (a PDF file) that contains 10 sample activities from Make It Real Learning product line.

List of available workbooks:

Arithmetic I - for grades 3-6

Fractions, Percents, and Decimals I - for grades 4-8. $4.99

Fractions, Percents, and Decimals II - for grades 6-11. $4.99

Sets, Probability, and Statistics I - for grades 6-10. $4.99

Linear Functions I - for algebra 1 and algebra 2. $4.99

Linear Functions II - for algebra 1 and algebra 2. $4.99

Quadratic Functions I - for algebra 1 and algebra 2/precalculus. $4.99

Exponential and Logarithmic Functions I - for algebra 2/precalculus. $4.99

Periodic and Piecewise Functions I - for algebra 2/precalculus. $4.99

Polynomial, Power, Logistic, and Rational Functions I - for algebra 2/precalculus. $4.99

Calculus I - for grade 12. $4.99

You can get ALL 11 workbooks listed above together for a discounted price of $39.99!

States by the Numbers series

Besides the workbooks mentioned above, Make It Real Learning also has a series of smaller workbooks called States by the Numbers. This series contains 50 workbooks — one for each state in the United States. The data in each workbook is taken directly from the Census Bureau's 2008 Statistical Abstract of the United States.

Each of these workbooks includes basic instruction and 80 practice problems. Additionally, the “What's the big idea?” pages give learners the opportunity to reflect on the things they've learned. Throughout the workbook series, we have consistently sought to address the content and process standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Read more about States by the Numbers series workbooks here.

Testimonials/reviews

Review of Make It Real Learning from Armyof5 blog