Materials to start off the school year
"Mathematical understanding is the ability to justify, in a way appropriate to the student's mathematical maturity, why a particular mathematical statement is true or where a mathematical rule comes from....
Mathematical understanding and
procedural skill are equally important and both are accessible using mathematical tasks of sufficient richness."
Department of Education. Iowa Core Mathematics. Iowa Department of Education, 17 Nov. 2010. Web. <http://iowacore.educateiowa.gov>.
Teaching for mathematical proficiency requires interrelated
components:conceptual understanding of the core knowledge of mathematics, students, and instructional practices needed for teaching; procedural fluency in carrying out basic instructional routines; strategic competence in planning effective instruction and solving problems that arise while teaching;adaptive reasoning in justifying and explaining one’s practices and in reflecting on those practices;and a productive disposition toward mathematics, teaching, learning, and the improvement of practice.
Kilpatrick, Jeremy, Jane Swafford, and Bradford Findell. "Developing Proficiency in Teaching Mathematics." Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics. Washington, DC: National Academy, 2001. 10. Print.