It is important that the mathematics curriculum introduces new ideas that build upon one another. The recent report Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics (National Research Council 2002) states that mathematical proficiency has five interwoven and interdependent strands:
- Understanding (Conceptual Understanding)
- Computing (Procedural Fluency)
- Applying (Strategic Competence)
- Reasoning (Adaptive Reasoning)
- Engaging (Productive Disposition)
In a mathematics classroom, students should be actively engaging in the learning process, using existing mathematical knowledge to make sense of the task, making connections among mathematical concepts, reasoning and making conjectures about the problem, communicating their mathematical thinking orally and in writing, listening and reacting to others' thinking and solutions to problems, using a variety of representations, such as pictures, tables, graphs, and words, for their mathematical thinking, using mathematical and technological tools, such as physical materials, calculators, and computers, along with textbooks and other instructional materials, and building new mathematical knowledge through problem solving.
In addition, the curriculum should adopt the vision of the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards:
To enable ALL of New Jersey's children to acquire the mathematical skills, understandings, and attitudes that they will need to be successful in their career and daily lives.
This vision is based on two principles; that all students can learn mathematics and all students need to learn mathematics. Success for all students on this vision depends on
- establishing learning environments that facilitate student learning of mathematics
- a commitment to equity and to excellence, and
- defining the critical goals of mathematics education today-what students should know and be able to do.
MATHEMATICS COURSE SELECTION DIAGRAM
Algebra 1 EOC Exam Outline
New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards
The Math Resource Center
RECREATIONAL MATH PROBLEMS
AREA CHALLENGE
TWELVE COIN PROBLEM |
