Math Learning Center

COVID-19 Lockdown was particularly challenging for most mothers of people with intellectual disabilities, including those with Rett syndrome (RTT), leading to feelings of abandonment from healthcare services of their children. Within those days, telerehabilitation has represented a valid alternative to support physical activity and treatment, supporting parents in structuring their children’s daily routine at home. This article aims to describe the well-being level of two groups of mothers of girls and women with RTT who were involved in a home-based remotely supervised motor rehabilitation program, respectively, before and during the COVID-19 Italian lockdown. Forty participants with classic RTT were recruited before the lockdown and randomly assigned to two groups that performed the intervention immediately before (Group 1) and during (Group 2) the lockdown, respectively. The intervention included an individualized daily physical activity program carried out for 12 weeks by participants’ parents and fortnightly supervised throughout Skype contacts to plan, monitor, and accommodate individual activities in the participant’s life at home. The short form Caregivers Well-Being Scale was collected for the mothers in each group 12 weeks before intervention (T1), at intervention initiation (T2), immediately after intervention termination (T3), as well as at 12 weeks after intervention termination (T4). Mothers of participants in the Group 1 showed a stable level of well-being across all four evaluations with a slight improvement during the lockdown, without significant change. Similarly, the well-being level of mothers in the Group 2 showed a statistically significant increase in their well-being between T2 and T3 (during the lockdown) and its reduction to the pre-intervention level between T3 and T4 (after the lockdown). The results suggest that the lockdown did not negatively affect the participants’ mothers’ well-being, leading to its improvement. Moreover, the proposed intervention could have supported the mothers in managing the new daily routine at home, positively affecting maternal well-being.

Performance tasks are highly effective tools to assist you in implementing rigorous standards. But how do you create, evaluate, and use such tools? In this bestselling book, educational experts Charlotte Danielson and Pia Hansen explain how to construct and apply performance tasks to gauge students’ deeper understanding of mathematical concepts at the early elementary level. You’ll learn how to: Evaluate the quality of performance tasks, whether you’ve written them yourself or found them online; Use performance tasks for instructional decision-making and to prepare students for summative assessments; Create your own performance tasks, or adapt pre-made tasks to best suit students’ needs; Design and use scoring rubrics to evaluate complex performance tasks; Use your students’ results to communicate more effectively with parents. This must-have second edition is fully aligned to the Common Core State Standards and assessments and includes a variety of new performance tasks and rubrics, along with samples of student work. Additionally, downloadable student handout versions of all the performance tasks are available as free eResources from our website (www.routledge.com/97811389069891), so you can easily distribute them to your class.

Learn how you can work more effectively with teachers in your role as a math coach or department chair. Coaching can be a rewarding experience both personally and professionally, but it also requires taking risks, being up-to-date on the latest research, implementing best practices, and managing relationships. In this practical book for grades K-8, you'll gain helpful insight on being an effective mentor, coach, and colleague to your math teachers. You'll find out how to: Develop relationships with your teachers through one-to-one collaboration; Establish teacher-teams to meet goals effectively; Improve student achievement by implementing best practices for math education; Overcome common challenges faced by coaches and teacher-leaders; And more! This updated second edition contains new information on empowering teachers to tackle the key shifts of the Common Core. It also offers updated advice on ways to conduct professional development with teachers such as through online chats and book studies. The book's appendices offer additional resources for math coaches, including rubrics, conference guides, and tools for classroom observations.