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The Learning Principle

Students must learn mathematics with understanding, actively building new knowledge from experience and prior knowledge.

Research has solidly established the importance of conceptual understanding in becoming proficient in a subject. When students understand mathematics, they are able to use their knowledge flexibly. They combine factual knowledge, procedural facility, and conceptual understanding in powerful ways. Learning the "basics" is important; however, students who memorize facts or procedures without understanding often are not sure when or how to use what they know. In contrast, conceptual understanding enables students to deal with novel problems and settings. They can solve problems that they have not encountered before. Learning with understanding also helps students become autonomous learners. Students learn more and better when they take control of their own learning. When challenged with appropriately chosen tasks, students can become confident in their ability to tackle difficult problems, eager to figure things out on their own, flexible in exploring mathematical ideas, and willing to persevere when tasks are challenging. Students of all ages bring to mathematics class a considerable knowledge base on which to build. School experiences should not inhibit students' natural inclination to understand by suggesting that mathematics is a body of knowledge that can be mastered only by a few.

The Assessment Principle


Assessment should support the learning of important mathematics and furnish useful information to both teachers and students.
Assessment should be more than merely a test at the end of instruction to gauge learning. It should be an integral part of instruction that guides teachers and enhances students' learning. Teachers should be continually gathering information about their students through questions, interviews, writing tasks, and other means. They can then make appropriate decisions about such matters as reviewing material, reteaching a difficult concept, or providing something more or different for students who are struggling or need enrichment. To be consistent with the Learning Principle, assessments should focus on understanding as well as procedural skills. Because different students show what they know and can do in different ways, assessments should also be done in multiple ways, and teachers should look for a convergence of evidence from different sources. Teachers must ensure that all students are given an opportunity to demonstrate their mathematics learning. For example, teachers should use communication-enhancing and bilingual techniques to support students who are learning English.

The Technology Principle


Technology is essential in teaching and learning mathematics; it influences the mathematics that is taught and enhances students' learning.

Calculators and computers are reshaping the mathematical landscape, and school mathematics should reflect those changes. Students can learn more mathematics more deeply with the appropriate and responsible use of technology. They can make and test conjectures. They can work at higher levels of generalization or abstraction. In the mathematics classrooms envisioned in Principles and Standards, every student has access to technology to facilitate his or her mathematics learning. Technology also offers options for students with special needs. Some students may benefit from the more constrained and engaging task situations possible with computers. Students with physical challenges can become much more engaged in mathematics using special technologies. Technology cannot replace the mathematics teacher, nor can it be used as a replacement for basic understandings and intuitions. The teacher must make prudent decisions about when and how to use technology and should ensure that the technology is enhancing students' mathematical thinking.

Standards for School Mathematics: Pre-K through 12


Prekindergarten through Grade 12 The Standards for school mathematics describe the mathematical understanding, knowledge, and skills that students should acquire from prekindergarten through grade 12. Each Standard consists of two to four specific goals that apply across all the grades. For the five Content Standards, each goal encompasses as many as seven specific expectations for the four grade bands considered in Principles and Standards: prekindergarten through grade 2, grades 35, grades 68, and grades 912. For each of the five Process Standards, the goals are described through examples that demonstrate what the Standard should look like in a grade band and what the teacher's role should be in achieving the Standard. Although each of these Standards applies to all grades, the relative emphasis on particular Standards will vary across the grade bands.

Number and Operations


Instructional programs from prekindergarten through grade 12 should enable all students to-

understand numbers, ways of representing numbers, relationships among numbers, and number systems; understand meanings of operations and how they relate to one another; compute fluently and make reasonable estimates.

Number pervades all areas of mathematics. The other four Content Standards as well as all five Process Standards are grounded in number. Central to the Number and Operations Standard is the development of number sense. Students with number sense naturally decompose numbers, use particular numbers as referents, solve problems using the relationships among operations and knowledge about the base-ten system, estimate a reasonable result for a problem, and have a disposition to make sense of numbers, problems, and results. For example, children in the lower elementary grades can learn that numbers can be decomposed and thought about in many different ways--that 24 is 2 tens and 4 ones and also two sets of 12. Computational fluency--having and using efficient and accurate methods for computing--is essential. Students should be able to perform computations in different ways, including mental calculations, estimation, and paper-and-pencil calculations using mathematically sound algorithms. All students should use calculators at appropriate times, setting the calculator aside when the instructional focus is on developing computational algorithms. Computational fluency should develop in tandem with understanding.

Problem Solving
Instructional programs from prekindergarten through grade 12 should enable all students to-

build new mathematical knowledge through problem solving; solve problems that arise in mathematics and in other contexts; apply and adapt a variety of appropriate strategies to solve problems; monitor and reflect on the process of mathematical problem solving.

Problem solving is an integral part of all mathematics learning. In everyday life and in the workplace, being able to solve problems can lead to great advantages. However, solving problems is not only a goal of learning mathematics but also a major means of doing so. Problem solving should not be an isolated part of the curriculum but should involve all Content Standards. Problem solving means engaging in a task for which the solution is not known in advance. Good problem solvers have a "mathematical disposition"--they analyze situations carefully in mathematical terms and naturally come to pose problems based on situations they see. For example, a young child might wonder, How long would it take to count to a million? Good problems give students the chance to solidify and extend their knowledge and to stimulate new learning. Most mathematical concepts can be introduced through problems based on familiar experiences coming from students' lives or from mathematical contexts. For example, middle-grades students might investigate which of several recipes for punch giving various amounts of water and juice is "fruitier." As students try different ideas, the teacher can help them to converge on using proportions, thus providing a meaningful introduction to a difficult concept. Students need to develop a range of strategies for solving problems, such as using diagrams, looking for patterns, or trying special values or cases. These strategies need instructional attention if students are to learn them. However, exposure to problem-solving strategies should be embedded across the curriculum. Students also need to learn to monitor and adjust the strategies they are using as they solve a problem. Teachers play an important role in developing students' problem-solving dispositions. They must choose problems that engage students. They need to create an environment that encourages students to explore, take risks, share failures and successes, and question one another. In such supportive environments, students develop the confidence they need to explore problems and the ability to make adjustments in their problemsolving strategies.

Reasoning and Proof

Instructional programs from prekindergarten through grade 12 should enable all students to-

recognize reasoning and proof as fundamental aspects of mathematics; make and investigate mathematical conjectures; develop and evaluate mathematical arguments and proofs; select and use various types of reasoning and methods of proof.

Systematic reasoning is a defining feature of mathematics. Exploring, justifying, and using mathematical conjectures are common to all content areas and, with different levels of rigor, all grade levels. Through the use of reasoning, students learn that mathematics makes sense. Reasoning and proof must be a consistent part of student's mathematical experiences in prekindergarten through grade 12.

Reasoning mathematically is a habit of mind, and like all habits, it must be developed through consistent use in many contexts and from the earliest grades. At all levels, students reason inductively from patterns and specific cases. For example, even a first grader can use an informal proof by contradiction to argue that the number 0 is even: "If 0 were odd, then 0 and 1 would be two odd numbers in a row. But even and odd numbers alternate. So 0 must be even." Increasingly over the grades, students should learn to make effective deductive arguments as well, using the mathematical truths they are establishing in class. By the end of secondary school, students should be able to understand and produce some mathematical proofs--logically rigorous deductions of conclusions from hypotheses--and should appreciate the value of such arguments.

Communication
Instructional programs from prekindergarten through grade 12 should enable all students to-

organize and consolidate their mathematical thinking though communication; communicate their mathematical thinking coherently and clearly to peers, teachers, and others; analyze and evaluate the mathematical thinking and strategies of others; use the language of mathematics to express mathematical ideas precisely.

As students are asked to communicate about the mathematics they are studying--to justify their reasoning to a classmate or to formulate a question about something that is puzzling--they gain insights into their thinking. In order to communicate their thinking to others, students naturally reflect on their learning and organize and consolidate their thinking about mathematics. Students should be encouraged to increase their ability to express themselves clearly and coherently. As they become older, their styles of argument and dialogue should more closely adhere to established conventions, and students should become more aware of, and responsive to, their audience. The ability to write about mathematics should be particularly nurtured across the grades. By working on problems with classmates, students also have opportunities to see the perspectives and methods of others. They can learn to understand and evaluate the thinking of others and to build on those ideas. For example, students who try to solve the following problem algebraically may have difficulty setting up the equations: There are some rabbits and some hutches. If one rabbit is put in each hutch, one rabbit will be left without a hutch. If two rabbits are put in each hutch, one hutch will remain empty. How many rabbits and how many hutches are there? They may benefit from the insights of students who solve the problem using a visual representation. Students need to learn to weigh the strengths and limitations of different approaches, thus becoming critical thinkers about mathematics.

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