Ours Is to Reason Why—and Make Sense of Math
Are you incorporating reasoning into your lesson plans every day? Are you helping your students make sense of the math in your lessons—every day? If not, you can start helping your students make sense today! NCTM’s new release, Focus in High School Mathematics: Reasoning and Sense Making, aims, as its title suggests, at high school teachers; but sense making and reasoning apply to mathematics for students at all ages. Purposeful questions are important in promoting reasoning: “How do you know?” “Will that always work?” “What will happen if….?” These questions, framed appropriately, are just as important in first grade as in high school. (November 2009)
Are You Helping Your Students Make Mathematical Connections?
Mathematics is an integrated field of study with dynamic connections across many perspectives and to a wide range of human endeavors. Although at times we focus our instruction on a narrow area of mathematics to develop our students’ skills and understanding of concepts, I call on you to ensure that students expect to make connections between the mathematics—and the math-related contexts—that they are currently encountering and those that they have already experienced. Students should expect to make connections and capitalize on them, using insights gained in one mathematical context to investigate conjectures in another. (October 2009)
Why Common Core State Standards?
The growing public debate about consistent standards for mathematics education has taken several twists and turns over the past three years. Building on NCTM’s earlier standards, the 2006 publication of NCTM’s Curriculum Focal Points for Prekindergarten through Grade 8 Mathematics: A Quest for Coherence has framed many of the subsequent discussions about the larger issues of curricular consistency and coherence. (September 2009)
Teacher and Students—Learners Together!
Collecting information about our students’ strategies, decision making, and procedural skills as we teach can allow us to make timely instructional decisions to support their learning of mathematics. This year, consider using an evidence-based method to improve what you and your students do together. Examining evidence of their grasp of concepts, fluency in using procedures, and skill in problem solving can be the key to enhancing and modifying the instruction that you offer them. Such an approach can change your expectations as well as your students’ by making everyone a learner! (July/August 2009)
Measure for Measure
Let me start by claiming that measurement is really the first Standard. If not for humans’ social proclivity to compare—to ask, “Who has more?” or “How far is that?” or “How big is that?”—would we have created, or discovered, much of the rest of mathematics? Commerce and many other human activities depend on measurement. (May/June 2009)
You and Your Principal—You’re in This Together!
This message is for both the principal and the teacher! I ask that you consider the challenges that you face together in addressing students’ learning. If you are a principal, I challenge you to take a proactive approach to your teachers’ and students’ learning. If you are a teacher, I challenge you to include the principal in sharing evidence of your students’ learning. I invite both of you to consider this question: "Does our school exemplify a learning environment for adults as well as students?" Identify the opportunities embedded in the school day and the school year that invite you and your colleagues to collaborate on improving student learning. (April 2009)
Don't Forget Geometry!
Focusing on setting the stage for algebra in pre-K–grade 8 math instruction has recently been a major topic of public discussion. However, over the last two decades of international studies, U.S. students continue to perform more poorly on international comparisons in geometry than they do in number, algebra, or data. As you finish this year and prepare curriculum for next year, I challenge you—don’t forget your students’ growth in and use of geometry each year! (March 2009)
Plan for the Coming Year!
One of the most important professional responsibilities of teachers of mathematics is an ongoing commitment to professional growth. Successful teaching produces student learning. So it clearly makes sense to build a plan that meets your self-identified needs and is directly tied to improving your effectiveness as a teacher. (January/February 2009)
Algebra—Connect it to Students’ Priorities!
When you hear the word algebra, what comes to mind? A one- or two-year course focusing on manipulating symbols? Well, algebra is much more than that! One of the biggest challenges facing us as mathematics teachers is to show all students—and their parents—that algebra is a tool for understanding and describing relationships in widely varied settings. (December 2008)
Knowing About About is Important—for All
Estimation is critical to building number sense, mental math skill, and computational fluency. NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics asserts that the development of computational fluency requires students to make a "connection between conceptual understanding and computational proficiency." (November 2008)
Equity: All Means ALL!
This year, NCTM is making equity in mathematics education a special focus. The Council’s Professional Development Focus of the Year for 2008–09 is "Equity: All Means ALL." Equity will be a theme at all NCTM meetings and highlighted in journal articles, research, Web site resources, the NCTM News Bulletin, and other NCTM forums. (October 2008)
Making Decisions—It's What You Do Every Day!
Teaching mathematics involves making hundreds of instructional, management, and assessment decisions for each class period every day. In fact, sound instructional decisions are the backbone of effective teaching. But how and where do you find information to help you make these crucial decisions? (September 2008)
Start the Year Off Right
It’s summer time; the sun feels warmer and shines longer. It’s prime time for vacations, family gatherings, relaxation, and an opportunity for reflection and rejuvenation. I hope you find yourself embracing this wonderful and special time of year. Equally thrilling is the fast-approaching time when teachers and students return to the classroom full of life and excitement. (July/August 2008)
From Strength to Strength, Into the Future
As I begin my tenure as NCTM president, I am humbled by the responsibility that you have entrusted to me. I will guide the Council in realizing its mission—serving as an ever more powerful public voice for mathematics education ... (May/June 2008)