standards- math

Professional organizations in mathematics have reached a relatively high degree of consensus about the K-12 goals of mathematics education. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Standards were written with the notion that they would be standard bearers for change. The shift to new goals, new curriculum, and new methods of teaching is detectable in schools but slow.

The overall goal identified by the NCTM Standards is the development of students who are mathematically literate or who have
mathematical power (NCTM 1989, p.5). Attainment of this overarching goal is believed to depend on ensuring that K-12 students (1) learn to value mathematics, (2) become confident in their ability to do mathematics, (3) become mathematical problem solvers, (4) learn to communicate mathematically, and (5) learn to reason mathematically.

The momentum for establishing a new vision of the mathematics curriculum grew from a number of overlapping concerns, including:

Mathematicians no longer consider mathematics to be confined to the study of numbers and shapes. (Davis and Hersh 1981, Steen 1990) Rather, mathematics includes, among other ideas, the study of patterns, chaos, and uncertainty. Further the subject of the patterns and logic studied is no longer tightly held to numbers and spatial relations. Recommendations for the K-12 curriculum now include many topics related to the study of probability and the collection and analysis of data.

Understanding a personal construction of meaning are prevalent themes in almost all current discussions of learning theory. Student understanding of mathematics is not a new goal, though the emphasis given to it has varied over time. The present emphasis on personal construction of meaning is somewhat newer in mathematics education and is certainly linked to the ongoing interest in constructivism.

One way teachers are grounding mathematics instruction in the real world is by using manipulative objects that students can use to explore number concepts. Manipulatives help students bridge the gap between the concrete and symbolic realms--the very
developmental place where adolescent learners live! Beyond using manipulatives, teachers are bringing math to life by presenting students with "application problems"-- math problems set in real-life contexts. Time on application problems is well spent because these problems force students out of the cookbook, follow-the-procedure method--"plug and chug."

Communicating about math goes hand in hand with the new emphasis on developing students' reasoning abilities. Classroom
discourse about math helps students clarify their thinking and helps teachers observe students' thought processes. In the past,
students who talked in class were reprimanded; now teachers encourage student discussion. When students talk about math, they internalize concepts and build long-term knowledge. In addition, teachers are also encouraging their students to write about math.

Examine the Standards

National Standards as reported by McREL: This is an attempt to synthesize all of the professional organizations, state agencies and national organizations who have proposed standards in content areas for all the nation's children, with benchmarks at early and upper elementary grades and the middle and high school levels. You will need to select "Browse Standards" and then your content areas.

Michigan Department of Education: Select your content area from the list on the middle, right side of page of the front page, under K-12 Curriculum. The Mathematics page will include a good deal of information about Mathematics in Michigan. Look for the link to the Michigan Curriculum Framework, and for Mathematics. It is a long document, so don't get impatient with its loading.