Woodward recommends that teachers develop math problems that relate directly to students' lives. For example, students might be asked to decide how many pieces of each kind of pizza each student would get at a class party. Cost could be manipulated in relation to type of pizza and number of pieces each student received. Anchoring instruction can have an added benefit in that it is often a motivator for students. Particularly useful to students with learning disabilities when learning mathematical concepts is being able to visualize and manipulate otherwise abstract ideas.
Visualization is a strategy that helps students link old and new knowledge.
Tools for Understanding allows for a high level of visualization and manipulation through the spreadsheet software. For example, the video shows students creating colored squares and rectangles on spreadsheets that appear on the computer screen. Creating and manipulating these shapes help students recognize principles of multiplication and division and provide them with visual and dynamic representations of abstract mathematical concepts. Her students exhibit a variety of problems, including heavy emotional interference with high intellectual ability, limited memory for math, and low motivation to complete math work. For the next step, Bush selected problems from her math series, Connected Math .