34 Peer-Recommended Online Resources for Mathematics Teachers
New Jersey Alternate Route candidates specializing in Mathematics Education recently recommended free web resources that they’ve consulted when preparing lessons and engaging, relevant activities for students. Their suggested resources are a part of our blog series featuring go-to-Websites, blogs, and other online teaching and reference materials for helping our state’s youth achieve the NJ Student Learning Standards. More than 300 teachers participated in this professional swap and share, with many contributing lesser-known resources that even seasoned educators will be excited to discover. Read why our Mathematics educators love the resources they recommend.
3blue1brown Youtube
"Most of this YouTube channels videos are college-level plus, but he has a playlist on calculus that teaches the materials from a different perspective from most schools."
-Vincent P., Grades 9-12
A Maths Dictionary for Kids by Jenny Eather
"Pinterest has nothing on this website for mathematics anchor charts and word wall terms. According to the site description, "A Maths Dictionary for Kids is an online math dictionary for students which explains over 955 common mathematical terms and math words in simple language with definitions, detailed visual examples, and online practice links for some entries."
-Karlene C., Grades K-5
Achieve The Core
"This website has it all; classroom resources, lesson plans, classwork, etc. All of it is based around Common Core Curriculum and most of the content is aligned directly with a standard to help you. The most useful tool to me has been the Coherence Map; it takes a grade level and shows every standard in an interactive flowchart to see where students came from, what they need to master and where they are going."
-Matt D., Grades K-5
ALEKS
"Students take an Initial Knowledge Test and then a personalized program is created for them to learn. My school requires a set amount done each week. Good for Math intervention but also for differentiation so each student is working at their own level."
-Adam B., Grades 9-12
Big Ideas Math
"Assign homework easily. Many resources are available in one place. It requires an account, but it includes an online accessible textbook which is free to use."
-Adem K., Grades 9-12
Blooket
"This website is similar to Kahoot except more interactive and competitive for students. There is an abundance of pre-made review games to choose from, and within each game, you can choose between various mini games that the students can engage in as they are solving problems. Students specifically enjoy the "Crypto Hack" game which asks students to choose a password and try to hack other students' passwords as they are answering questions from the bank you choose."
-Natalie C., Grades 9-12
CK-12
"This is a website that provides teachers and students access to online books, activities, and interactive lessons online for free. It is by far one of the most useful sites I use to refresh my own knowledge and find new ways to teach a subject."
-Joseph M., Grades 9-12
Crash Course Kids - YouTube Channel
"Crash Course Kids has many high-quality videos which serve as good introduction to topic videos."
-Tim S., Grades K-5
Delta Math
"Great resource for students to practice math skills. You can create assignments based on topic or Common Core Curriculum standards. Highly recommend!"
-Melyssa L., Grades 9-12
Desmos
"Desmos offers a variety of digital math activities that promote mathematical thinking and problem solving."
-Fiona C., Grades 6-8
"It has a great free graphing calculator which is a great visual tool to share with students graphing functions and doing transformations for instance. Also, it is a great resource for students to practice graphing skills in an engaging and interactive way."
-Melyssa L., Grades 9-12
"This is a graphing website where you can graph equations for students and even use them to manipulate variables when you get good at it. Also, you can look up reference graphs for lessons already made by other users. I use this to show my students interactive graphs to explain domain, range, systems of equations, conics, trig, and even the definition of the derivative."
-Joseph M., Grades 9-12
European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education
"The European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education is founded to stimulate discussions on contemporary topics in Science and Mathematics Education and to foster the application of the results in primary, secondary, and higher education. The Journal is a platform for exchange of original ideas with particular emphasis on application. The site features empirical and theoretical research papers, as well as papers on innovation of teaching techniques and technologies, and position papers."
-Cambiz S., Grades 9-12
Granite School District Vocabulary Cards
"The vocabulary cards on this website match the math curriculum adopted by the Utah State Board of Education, August 2010, and the Common Core. The cards are arranged alphabetically and are designed to help all students with math content vocabulary, including ELL, Gifted and Talented, Special Education, and Regular Education students."
-Karlene C., Grades K-5
Illustrative Mathematics
"This is a good curriculum type website to help with lesson planning. Includes standards as well as situational problems with context."
-Adam B., Grades 9-12
Inside Mathematics
"This site provides me examples of how to meet the Common Core math content standards for 8th grade and Algebra 1. The site provides different examples of what activities I could give, sample student responses, and how to rate student progress/understanding of the activities."
-Angelique V., Grades 6-8
IXL
"IXL has math skills broken down by grade level and topic. IXL allows students to practice skills and will explain the correct answer and steps if they get the problem incorrect."
-Fiona C., Grades 6-8
"IXL is a learning tool for students that has specific math topics that you can assign to students. It's a great tool to assign for extra practice, a menu item, or during down time like after a test. You can also have students work on it during class, and you can make a "live classroom" where you can see on your screen if a student is struggling with the questions or if they are getting them all right. Sometimes in class I assign it and when I see a student struggling, I pull them to the back to go over their mistakes with them and hopefully help them before they get too far in."
-Nicole M., Grades 6-8
K5learning
"Excellent source of math worksheets."
-John M., Grades 6-8
Kahoot
"Benefit of this site is you can use what students know and quiz them on content while creating a fun learning environment. It also helps students remember what they have learned faster than just old-fashioned studying."
-Ebony L., Grades K-5
Khan Academy
The explanations are in depth thus it helps me with G&T students.
-Afsheen K., Grades 6-8
"There are videos to explain a concept or standard."
-Michelle R., Grades K-5
Kuta Software
"Kuta software is a fantastic site to easily generate practice problems for your students. These can be made in all different formats and allows for proper repetition in student work."
-Stephanie P., Grades 9-12
"This has an insane number of free worksheets for every subject. Perfect for homework for students."
-Vincent P., Grades 9-12
Mash Up Math
"This site provides free access to lesson plans, activity ideas and worksheets so I am not limited to the activities listed in my class textbooks. This is especially helpful for when I want to do creative projects and can properly incorporate them into the lessons."
-Angelique V., Grades 6-8
Math Antics
"There are videos to explain a standard or concept."
-Michelle R., Grades K-5
Math is Fun
"Very easy language and the examples are fun and interactive."
-Ashfeen K., Grades 6-8
Math Medic
"This site has all of the general High School Math courses. Math Medic has a very application-based curriculum that helps students associate their current content to a real-world example."
-Stephanie P., Grades 9-12
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
"The NCTM Publications website provides access to NCTM journals and selected books. The website offers a variety of useful tools to ease navigation and search functions."
-Cambiz S., Grades 9-12
New Jersey Center For Teaching and Learning
"There are a lot of resources for every subject and grade level."
-Alexander B., Grades 9-12
Quizizz
"Quizizz is a quizzing learning tool I like to use as a review activity before a quiz or exam. Students log on with their Chromebooks (I believe there is a cell-phone option as well) and they answer multiple choice/TF questions that you put in and they play to be in first second or third place. You can set each question on a timer so, depending on the question, you can give more or less time for students to answer. After each question, it reports how many answered each question; so, if a lot of students got a problem wrong, you can see that instantly and go over it."
-Nicole M., Grades 6-8
SeeSaw
"This site gives tons of ideas for student focused work. It allows for a work portfolio and up to more than a few family members that can track a scholar's progress. Students have fun with drawing their work, recording, and keeping trck of their progress over time."
-Ebony L., Grades K-5
Teachers Pay Teachers
"I love this website. I‘ve always found what I need there -worksheets, forms, homework, tests. Everything that a teacher needs. But some resources are a little expensive."
-Adem K., Grades 9-12
Teacher Vision
"This site includes all topics for all grade levels. What I like most about it is that it not only has resources to help you specifically understand how to teach a math concept, but it also has unique interdisciplinary activities. One drawback is that you need an account to get full access to all their lesson plans and worksheets, but there are still a ton of teaching tools and lesson ideas available without an account."
-Hannah Wolf, Grades K-12
Times Educational Supplement (TES)
"A Teachers-Pay-Teachers alternative; it has a whole lot of classroom activities to provide. Also, it is a great overall landing page for teachers as it advertises jobs and offers general industry info."
-Matt D., Grades K-5
Trigonometry-Unit Circle
"Fun way to work with the unit circle in form of a game. Helps to identify and memorize all the angles and points on the circle in a fun and easy way. These can then be easily used to evaluate trig ratios for any angle measures."
-Anshu K., Grades 9-12
Virtual Nerd
"Excellent videos for the students to learn math concepts."
-John M., Grades 6-8
Wolfram MathWorld
"I was first introduced to this site when I was an undergraduate TA trying to remember math formulas and concepts from semesters before. What I think is so great about it is that the website is a reliable - incredibly thorough - online textbook of sorts. For any problem, concept, topic or formula, the site has an individual page where you can see definitions and examples. Especially because my school does not use traditional textbooks, I go here to help ground me in the basics."
-Hannah Wolf, Grades K-12
YouCubed
Resources and full courses available for teachers, parents, and students about the importance of mathematical thinking. It features libraries of equitable learning tasks, projects, and assessments, and pathways to developing data science courses.
-Amanda P., Grades 9-12
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Comments
Grades 9-12
Delta Math is a great resource with a valuable feature of allowing students to see the correct answer if they continue to solve a problem incorrectly. You can assign more problems in areas where students need more help.
Grades 9-12
Delta Math is a great resource with a valuable feature of allowing students to see the correct answer if they continue to solve a problem incorrectly. You can assign more problems in areas where students need more help.
Math
Wow! There are so many great resources here that I was never aware of. I would say that Teacher Vision is going to be really useful to me next year. There were some subjects in math that I struggled to teach to the best of my ability. Math has changes a lot since I was in elementary school, and having a resource that can guide you through different topics and show you how to properly teach it is super useful! The website is also very user friendly. You can simply type in a topic into the search bar and all of the available resources appear!
Illustrative Mathematics review
This resource is good for lesson planning. It has many online resources that teachers can add to enhance lessons. It is also especially relevant as it incorporates standards that align with NJ state standards. It also encourages higher order thinking skills through enrichment focused learning resources. It offers content at multiple levels that allows for customization by teachers to meet student needs through sample lesson plans and worksheets. The output of Illustrative Mathematics is the lesson plans and worksheets which are helpful for teachers looking for more examples outside of their textbook.
Delta Math
Delta Math is a great resource with a valuable feature of providing students immediate feedback by providing the correct answers and steps of how to solve problems. The skills can be customized for areas of student need. Teachers can see data on number of attempts and length of time spent on each problem.
9-12 Mathematics
I love using Kuta Software. It allows me to create multiple versions of an assignment, which I can vary be degree of difficulty. I use this software to generate classwork, homework and even quizzes. I highly recommend this software to teachers. The topics covered are comprehensive and the Geometry is the best. The Geometry software has the capability to create diagrams that I used to create by hand.
7th Grade Math
Blooket is extremely engaging because of its competitive nature and its many modes such as gold rush and fishing frenzy. Kids go wild for it, and they learn while having fun. Its super easy to use all students need is to type in a code choose an avatar and nickname. Feedback is immediate after answering a question. Blookets are completely customizable, and they allow teachers to make the questions, or you can just choose a preset option. Blookets are great for data because after finishing the round a teacher can easily view and export the data to see how well their students preformed on each individual question. I give Blooket a 4 for relevancy, 4 for customization, a 4 for feedback, 3.5 for Thinking Skills (This depends on the mode and the quality of questions the teacher creates), a 4 for usability, a 4 for engagement, and a 4 for sharing. 27.5/28 Fantastic app overall I highly recommend it!
6th Grade Math
Blooket is a great app to test what students know and should be used as a supplement and not at the beginning stages of when a concept is first introduced. It encourages the use of higher order thinking skills but students must be monitored to ensure they are actually solving the problems and not just guessing. Detailed feedback allows the teacher to monitor progress of students. Allows teachers to customize their questions and keep students engaged throughout the game because they are being quizzed with specific grade level material.
Educational App Review Virtual Nerd 6th Grade Math
Virtual Nerd videos are embedded in the enVision interactive lesson plans that I use for daily instruction. I assign the videos for every lesson. They offer my students a concise evaluation of every lesson. The videos are aligned with Common Core standards that have clear explanations and supporting visual notes. The application is well organized and provides an excellent resource for various forms of independent and group learning. The videos are presented in a scholastic manner and avoid the distractions of gaming videos. They are an excellent review source and combine the aspects of mathematical literacy and numeracy needed in today’s learning environment. My students enjoy watching the videos and use them as a reliable reference when preparing for future assessments.
Grade 6 Math - CK-12 Resource
I absolutely love the Ck-12 resource website. It provides all of the math standards with the corresponding lessons. It allows for adaptive practice with tutorials and help links along the way. There are great visual representations of math problems and real world examples demonstrated throughout the practice sessions. Students are given a goal to achieve 10 correct responses before moving onto the next level. It is a great motivator and will keep students engaged throughout the lesson. I am so excited to use this for the upcoming school year!
5th grade math
I was very happy to read this blog post because there are so many interesting and new sites for me to try out but I was most excited to see Blooket. Last year I discovered this game from one of my students and I remembered the kids absolutely loving it but when I started this school year, I could not remember the name of it. This app is perfect for my students, they are highly motivated to play, they can play it on their own and there are a lot of already premade sets I can use but I can also make my own. It does give me reports on how many and what questions students got wrong so that is helpful for me to go back and review.
Heather Ngoma has over 25 years of experience collaborating with educators across New Jersey to drive education innovation. She currently serves as the Director of the Rutgers-GSE Alternate Route Program in the Department of Learning and Teaching, a program which helps career changers, recent college graduates, and other aspiring education professionals become licensed teachers in New Jersey. Follow her on Twitter @heatherngoma.
Math antics
Math antics is a math site that is full of resources, examples for students from 3rd to 8th grade. I love that students can launch and navigate the app independently.
While no performance summary or student product is saved, math antics is an app that teaches basic math in a fun and engaging way.
I love that most of the lessons are free to watch on youtube and on their web sites. However, there is the option of paid membership to gain access to print based worksheets and exercises that can be used with each lesson.