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Mathematics Learning and Teaching with the Michigan GLCEs

The Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations provide detail about what students should know and be able to do as a result of their experiences in mathematics classrooms. In general, across all grades: Students should develop fluency with basic numbers and operations, applying strategies as needed for making routine calculations, and using calculators thoughtfully for complex calculations. They should learn arithmetic facts in ways that help them understand the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Students should acquire number sense: how to estimate, how to know if an answer makes sense, etc. Students should gain an understanding of the meaning of key concepts such as place value, decimal, fraction, ratio, percent. They should be able to explain the reasons behind operations with fractions or decimals. Students should acquire spatial sense: seeing relationships among angles, figures, etc. Students should develop methods for measuring various quantities and knowledge of relationships among units of measurement; they should know how to calculate quantities derived from measurements. They should know how to represent data in tables, graphs and rules. They should be able to use statistical methods to describe, evaluate and analyze data when appropriate, and use their measurement and statistical knowledge to solve problems. Students should be able to use variables to represent mathematical relationships and think analytically about problems. However, there is little guidance in the GLCEs about what kinds of experiences students should have in order to learn these content goals. The domains for each strand suggest that the GLCEs contain different types of knowledge and that students need to understand and be able to use the content specifications in different ways. That is, some of the domains call for conceptual understanding knowing the meaning of number forms or operations, recognizing and using various representations, or seeing patterns and relationships while others call for fluency or skillfulness in the use of mathematics. Still others suggest a combination of fluency and conceptual understanding when they call for students to demonstrate problem-solving ability or interpret and analyze data. The verbs used throughout the GLCEs also suggest ways in which students should interact with the content goals. Phrases such as Understand the concept of Understand the relationship between Understand and use indicate where a deep understanding of the meaning of concepts and procedures needs to be developed, not just an ability to use algorithms without understanding. Verbs such as Estimate Measure Compute Sketch indicate that fluency needs to be developed. And GLCEs that begin with Solve applied problems Represent or Apply require a sophisticated ability to work with mathematical knowledge. Some instructional materials do a good job of presenting mathematical experiences that develop these ways of understanding. But no existing instructional materials are perfectly aligned with the GLCEs, and some provide very little guidance for developing deep and enduring understanding and fluency. Teachers need to be able to judge the potential effectiveness of mathematics learning activities and create new ones or modify existing ones when needed.

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The NCTM Standards and other research-based resources give guidance for how to teach mathematics for understanding and fluency. Mathematics Teaching Methods The goal of mathematics teaching is to engage students in investigating, analyzing, predicting, applying, comparing, exploring, solving problems and experiencing the world of numbers, shapes and data (as opposed to memorizing, regurgitating, and filling out drill worksheets). These experiences should be connected to their everyday lives in order to make mathematics meaningful. Students should learn to make informed decisions, evaluate information, analyze and interpret data, and apply knowledge to the real world. Teaching must be structured in different ways to accomplish these goals: 1) Small groups need to work together on rich, open-ended problems, investigating and debating possible solutions using manipulatives and technology when appropriate; justifying their approaches; checking each others work. Problems are important as the structure for learning mathematics; they challenge students to think mathematically. They are also important for teaching students various approaches to problem solving. Problems primarily come from the instructional materials. Teachers are responsible for setting up the problem (making it intelligible to students), engaging prior knowledge, posing questions during group work to help students see salient aspects of the problem, keeping students on track, etc. They also facilitate the discussion following small group work, where students present their solution strategies. In these discussions, teachers help students look critically at solutions presented to the class, help presenters and other class members think about the reasonableness and accuracy of the solution, allow other solutions to be presented, and draw connections between different solution approaches and to previous work. 2) Problems should have recognizable and interesting real-world contexts, in order to stimulate students prior knowledge and help them learn to apply mathematics to everyday situations. Learning about data, statistics and probability (making decisions based on numerical information) requires working with real data in real applications. Again, while the problems are generally found in the instructional materials, teachers are responsible for suggesting additional applications of the mathematics used in the problems. 3) Students learn math facts better when they understand the concepts of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. They remember the strategies used to do calculations when the reasoning for the strategies is clear, and they know when to apply the strategies. Knowledge of math facts is obtained for most students not by memorization, but by working with fact families and other ways of grouping numbers. Operations with fractions, percents and decimals are also enhanced by understanding the reasons behind the operations. Memorized algorithms such as invert and multiply are useful in certain situations, but students need to be able to recognize when the algorithm is applicable, and if the result makes sense. Young students have multiple ways of carrying out operations. What adults recognize as a subtraction problem, for instance, can be viewed as a grouping and counting problem, as a counting-on problem, as a counting-backward problem, etc. Recognizing these different approaches and allowing young students to represent their operation problems

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with manipulatives helps them develop the ability to see operations and know when they are applicable. MDE provides some insight into the development of computational fluency in its introduction to the GLCE cross-grade matrixes: Several of these expectations call for fluency, by which we mean efficiency and accuracy in computation. Teachers should help students become fluent in calculation by building from experience with concrete objects and pictorial representations, encouraging use of strategies and algorithms that can be used generally, and by emphasizing conceptual relationships among operations, through such tools as fact families. Fluency may depend on recall and automaticity with basic number facts, or on use of computational strategies. 4) Communication is fundamental in mathematics classrooms. Students should share ideas with each other in small groups, and learn to explain their thinking publicly to the whole class. Since not all students will have a chance to speak in class, or will be hesitant to speak, they need to have opportunities to elaborate on their thinking in writing, to solve problems and explain their solutions, to suggest alternative solutions, to criticize proposed solutions. Written work should be more than drill and practice sheets. 5) When teachers are directing the class work or having students review their problem solutions, they should pose questions to students that make them think, such as why did you do this? and what would happen if you did that? Teachers questions should elicit students ideas and challenge them to think analytically. Facilitating class discussions is challenging: All students need to be engaged and included in the discussion; teachers need to know when to let students speak without being corrected (brainstorming) and when to try to focus and refine students thinking. Often this can be done in a class environment where students respond to each others assertions, in friendly but thoughtful debate.

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JPS Elementary Mathematics Teachers commitments to What Students Need to Learn from Math Class Investigating, analyzing, comprehending, predicting, comparing, collecting, exploring, experiencing (as opposed to memorizing, regurgitating, and drill worksheets) Application of key concepts to students everyday lives how mathematics can be used and how it affects their lives more important than memorized facts or algorithms. Problem solving, making conjectures and supporting them, connecting to students experiences, reasoning, interpreting and analyzing data Actively engaged in hands-on investigations

Make informed decisions, evaluate information, analyze and interpret data, apply knowledge to the real world, solve problems, do hands-on activities, must be relevant Not isolated facts but genuine understanding of ideas and processes, solve problems, hands-on, make connections between personal and formal knowledge

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