Another conversation I had was with another math teacher at my LINK2PRACTICE school about concept mastery in a Foundations of Math class. This teacher uses many real-world examples that the students can relate to, which she says is one of the best ways to help them understand what is happening. In the class I observed she was teaching the concept of a “scaling factor” and used examples of candy ring bracelets, pizzas and cone shaped popcorn bags. Each example demonstrated the scaling factor in each dimension (1-D, 2-D,3-D) which was the main objective of the lesson. After the lesson, the teacher explained that she also uses online manipulatives, simulations and other hands-on activities often because that also helps concretize concepts and helps with understanding. With a Foundations of Math class, many students have a hard time thinking abstractly and need to visualize what is going on, so she explained examples and activities are critical. The also shared many resources that she uses to find activities and manipulatives, some of which can be found in the resources section of this site.