Westphal, a former teacher who is now an author and gifted education consultant who works with teachers in the area of differentiation, provides secondary math teachers a guide to using menus to create a student-centered learning environment based on choice. She presents five types of menus students in algebra classes can use to select products like collages, essays, maps, quizzes, plays, murals, videos, speeches, and dioramas to develop for assessment, instead of a traditional worksheet format. They consist of meal, tic-tac-toe, list, 20-50-80, and game show menus, and she describes their benefits, limitations, and time considerations in the introductory chapters, along with the importance of choice, how to use the menus, product guidelines, and rubrics and grading. These are followed by chapters of menus for properties of numbers, equations, graphing, and polynomials. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Differentiating Instruction With Menus: Algebra I/II offers high school math teachers everything needed to create a student-centered learning environment based on choice. This book uses six different types of menus that students can use to select exciting advanced level products that they will develop so teachers can assess what has been learned-instead of using a traditional worksheet format. Topics addressed include numbers, algebra basics, exponents, graphs, functions, polynomials, and various equations typically included in the algebra I/II curriculum. Differentiating Instruction With Menus: Algebra I/II contains attractive reproducible menus, each based on the levels of Bloom's Revised taxonomy as well as incorporating different learning styles. These menus can be used to guide students in making decisions as to which products they will develop after studying a major concept or unit.
