ACTIVITY SEQUENCE

Slide 1
Title Slide
Today’s presentation is about exploring five strands
of desirable mathematical actions for students.

Pratical and specialised perspectives need to

incorporate a sense of ‘doing’, that the focus should
be on the mathematical actions being undertaken
during the learning.

To further delineate the scope and nature of the

mathematical actions, Kilpatrick, Swafford and
Findell (2001) established and described five strands
of mathematical actions, and Watson and Sullivan
(2008) then further refined these five strands
Slide 2
Workshop Outline
Here is an outline of what we are going to discuss
through today
The Five Strands of Mathematical actions are
interwoven and interdependent, include:
- Conceptual Understanding
- Procedural Fluency
- Strategic Competence
- Adaptive Reasoning
- Productive Disposition
Let's now look at each of the five strands in a bit
more detail …
Let’s now take a closer look at what it means Slide 3
conceptual understanding of mathematics
Conceptual Understanding
Students with conceptual understanding know more
than isolated facts and methods. They organize their
knowledge into a coherent whole, enabling them to
learn new ideas by connecting them to what they
already know. Because facts and methods learned
with understanding are connected, they are easier to
remember and use, and can be reconstructed when
forgotten. If students understand a method, they are
more likely to remember it correctly.
Let’s now move on to the second strand. Slide 4

While the knowledge of procedures builds on the

foundation of conceptual knowledge, procedural
fluency is important in its own right.
Let’s take a closer look …
Procedural fluency is a critical component of
mathematical proficiency.
When developing procedural fluency, students need
to have a deep and flexible knowledge of a variety of
procedures, along with the ability to judge which
procedures or strategies are appropriate for use in
particular situations.
The end goal is that students are able to use
appropriate mathematical procedures fluently, to
apply their understanding to real world problems.

Strategic Competence Slide 5

Let’s now move on to the third strand – Strategic

Competence …
This process involves taking a situation and turning it
into a solvable problem that can be represented by a
mathematical model, employing mathematical skills
to produce a solution, and then interpreting and
evaluating the solution in the context of the
problem.

Adaptive Reasoning Slide 6

Let’s now move on to the third strand – Adaptive

Reasoning …
In mathematics, adaptive reasoning guides learning
as students navigate through facts, procedures,
concepts, and solution methods to see if they fit
together in a way that makes sense.

A demonstration of adaptive reasoning is students’

ability to both explain and justify their work.
Productive Disposition Slide 7

Let’s now look at the final strand, productive

disposition …

As the other strands develop, so too does productive

disposition.

Students disposition toward mathematics is a major

factor in determining their educational success. For
example, as students strategic competence is
developed as they solve on routine problems, their
belief in themselves as mathematics learners
become more positive.