Key Messages - Teaching & Learning Mathematics

Discussion Board Assignments

Unit Three - Understanding Key Messages

Read, View & Reflect

Select three of the resources listed and use their content to inform your response to the question posed below.

  1. Dr. Ruth Beatty - Rethinking "Concrete" to "Abstract" in Mathematics
  2. NCTM principles to action executive summary
  3. NCTM position paper: procedural fluency
  4. NCTM brief: Effective Teaching for the Development of Skill and Conceptual Understanding of Number: What is Most Effective?
  5. Article Teach Mathematics Right the First Time
  6. Webcast clip from Leaders in Educational Thought 2014: Basic Facts or Conceptual Understandings? A False Dichotomy by Cathy Fosnot http://learnteachlead.ca/videos/cathy-fosnot-basic-facts-or-conceptual-understanding-a-false-dichotomy/
  7. Webcast clip: Mathematics The myths the struggles and ideas for change learnteachlead.ca/mathematicshttp://learnteachlead.ca/mathematics/


For the following webcasts, please note: You will have to scroll down to find the 2 video clips, “Math Perceptions: Dispelling the Myth”, and “Learning Beliefs in Mathematics”

  1. Webcast clips: Math Perceptions: Dispelling the Myth, and Learning Beliefs in Mathematics from LNS Webcast Leaders in Educational Thought 2014 available at: http://learnteachlead.ca/projects/leaders-in-educational-thought-mathematics-k-12


Respond

“Debates about the teaching of mathematics have raged for decades. In general, the debate centers on the role of direct instruction versus dialogic instruction (constructivist approach) with some teachers and researchers advocating for one or the other.” (Hattie, Fisher and Frey, 2017. Visible Learning for Mathematics - What Works Best to Optimize Student Learning, p. 23)

From your perspective as a leader, and considering your own personal math experience, together with the resources you have engaged with for this assignment, which instructional approach do you believe to be the most effective: direct instruction or or dialogic instruction and why?


On the discussion board:

Post a one or two paragraph response to this question. Read and pose a question to others that will help them consider a position beyond their current belief, and respond to others’ questions.