Statement of Understanding – Teaching Math in the K-8 Classroom

Statement of Understanding – Teaching Math in the K-8 Classroom

Janey Wahlman

University of Alaska Southeast

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Statement of Understanding – Teaching Math in the K-8 Classroom

Statement of Understanding

Math concepts can be understood by everyone, yet students who have difficulty mastering

certain content conclude they are “bad at math”, a stigma that can follow them throughout their school

career. High expectations for students should exist, yet students need adequate support to meet those

expectations. This support should originate with the teacher whose responsibility is to explain math

content in a concrete way by employing multiple strategies; to do this effectively, the teacher must

understand the content his/herself. Having a firm understanding of math concepts will facilitate

teaching them in way students can make meaning of them. Math curriculum should focus on teaching

students that mathematics in an integrated whole that grows and connects across the grades rather

than a collection of bits and pieces (Van de Walle, Karp, Bay-Williams, & Wray, 2015). I will endeavor to

provide high-quality instruction in such a way that students can learn to think and reason

mathematically, enabling them to conjecture and solve problems in such a way as to apply that

knowledge to future math classes and in real world situations.

The Standards for Mathematical practice state that children should make sense of problems and

persevere to solve them, however, children need to be equipped with the tools to solve them; multiple

entry and exit points offer this opportunity. Multiple entry points are varied strategies or methods to go

about solving the same problem. Multiple exit points are various ways to express solutions that

demonstrate a range of mathematical understanding. Multiple entry and exit points are important

because they give students a choice of strategies. This type of differentiation can lower the anxiety of

students, particularly English language learners. Multiple strategies also encourage students to engage

with a task in a way that makes sense to them, rather than trying to recall or replicate a procedure

shown to them. The teacher can gather useful formative assessment data about students’

mathematical understanding and develop a plan for continued instruction while students work out

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Statement of Understanding – Teaching Math in the K-8 Classroom

problems. For example, students can consider simpler forms of the original problem to gain more

information about its solution. In multiplication, students can use such strategies as ‘doubles’ or

‘doubles and one more set’ to break the problem into simpler parts to assist them in arriving at the

correct solution. The ‘close’ fact reasoning strategy is helpful to the extent it reinforces number sense

and can be used to derive any unknown fact. Estimation is also a powerful tool that students can employ

to verify whether the answer they came up with was in fact reasonable.

Students also need to be able to make sense of quantities and their relationships in problem

situations. In other words, students should have some concept of the meaning of quantities in addition

to mere computation. Preparing students to reason abstractly in a given situation, apply the necessary

symbols to understand what is being asked and come up with a possible solution prepares them for real

life and makes the concepts and principles they are learning in school applicable to everyday situations.

Students will be able to engage more when they apply what they are learning. For example, when

teaching how to add and subtract decimals, teachers can use word problems involving the exchange of

money. In this way students learn to calculate change, tax, and total amounts applying math to

everyday situations to solve problems. With regards to base-ten concepts students should understand

that 5 tens and 5 ones are equivalent to 55 ones. Teachers can employ the use of models and

manipulatives to assist children to understand place value and regrouping.

Students should be taught to justify their conclusions and communicate these to others in addition to

responding to the arguments of others. When students understand the concepts, they can

communicate the steps and reason through the process with other students to identify how and why

the problem was calculated in a certain way. Learning is social in nature and it is in this manner we

prepare students to be critical thinkers and critically consider the solutions of others.

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Statement of Understanding – Teaching Math in the K-8 Classroom

It is important that students can apply math to everyday situations to solve problems they may

encounter. They should be able to identify quantities and map their relationships with tools like

diagrams, two-way tables, graphs, flowcharts and formulas. A way to incorporate graphs in any

classroom is by sorting objects and then graphing the results. This can also include information

pertaining to students from birth months for the year to hot/cold lunch for the day. In this way children

can draw conclusions from analyzing mathematical relationships. Math is not merely a discipline for the

classroom, instead it is a tool for to be used daily in multiple ways. If students are not taught the

applicability of math in real life situations, they are less likely to value its importance.

Students should try to look for and make use of structure. Identifying a pattern in mathematical

problems should simplify the problem. These patterns or structure can be utilized with various types of

math. One way to think of this is, “work smarter, not harder”. If students can identify a pattern, they

will often save themselves busy work and have a better ‘big picture’ of the mathematical problem and

solution. It is also important that students identify repetition and make conclusions based off the

repetition. If students can identify repetition, they can predict the outcome. Strategies such as these

assist students in the real-world application of math and solidify meaningful understanding of math

content.

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Statement of Understanding – Teaching Math in the K-8 Classroom

References

Van de Walle, J. A., Karp, K., Bay-Williams, J. M., & Wray, J. A. (2015). Elementary and middle school

mathematics: teaching developmentally. Boston: Pearson.