Kelsey Barrett

5 May 2019

Math 381

NTCM Essay

As a future elementary educator, mathematics instruction is going to be a large

component of my education to my students. It is important that I have a clear understanding of

the resources available, and all of the many benefits that I can get from them. Both the magazine

journals of Teaching Children Mathematics and the NCTM.org website are valuable resources to

learn instruction tactics, activities, and endless other resources that are beneficial to mathematics.

Teaching Children Mathematics, NCTM August 2010 addition is a fantastic article for any

teacher to use for their mathematic instruction and education. The magazine has multiple

additional components that are useful for instruction. There are articles that hone in on specific

content in mathematics instruction, examples of student work to reference, as well as worksheets

and activities provided for teachers to use. have seen multiple connections to Math 381 content

in this magazine. The magazine starts with explaining the integral elements of scholarly

teaching. The article highlights four teacher behaviors which connect to scholarly teaching that is

exemplified and led in class, being inquisitive, self-reflective, collaborative and the importance

of listening. One place where all of these qualities are called upon are during number talks. Both

from the teacher and the participating students. Some of the instruction within Math 381 has

been about the teacher-centered behaviors. Being Inquisitive, Self-Reflective, Collaborative, and

a listener are all essential components to scholarly teaching which I have learned in math 381.
 For many of the student problem examples, there was a full problem entry from the

students which included the title of the problem, student names, the proof, examples as well as

important vocabulary. In math 381 I have learned the overall importance of the complete

problem entry, and I have been called to complete problem entry multiple times on homework

and additional assignments for class. The problem entry helps clearly exemplify the student

work. I saw multiple examples were students labeled the different numbers within the problem

properly, for example using the terms minuend, subtrahend and difference in a subtraction

problem. This was all new mathematical vocabulary to me this quarter, and I saw the students

using it multiple times throughout the article, so that was a huge connection to Math 381 content.

Students also used many of the techniques used that we have learned in class, such as labeling

the communitive and associative property, rounding to friendly numbers, and adding and

subtracting numbers. Overall, there was a focus on many articles is the students explaining and

justifying their ideas which is always required within Math 381.

I could not find any specific citations or attributions to the CCSS-M standards. Although,

many of the activities given and student examples shown exemplify CCSS-M standards. Some

examples of colorations to CCSS-M standards are given below.

In the example problem of introduction of student measurement students exemplified many

CCSS-M standards. They build tiles to compute addition of area. They made sense of the

problems and preserved solving them very clearly by building the tiles and supporting tiles with

written linear addition. They modeled with mathematics by building representations of the added

areas, which connect to CCSS-M standard 4. There was a clear use for structure applied in this

activity. There is an article on student-constructed problems that extend proportional reasoning.

(Lamm, M. Pugalee, D. 2010,16). Students again model with mathematics by creating their own
problems to solve. It creates Here I see the standard 3 most present, Construct viable arguments

and critique the reasoning of others, because they are called to develop problems which they

must be able to explain and reason with.

One aspect of the journal that a teacher might use is information and instructions that are

included in this magazine about the NTCM iPhone application. I found this very interesting since

this was 9 years ago, so this was probably the time where many companies were developing and

releasing apps, which we still use today. Any addition of technology in the classroom can be

helpful for both the teachers and the students. The app provides all and even more than the

journal is able to. Apps are often more interactive for the user than websites.

Another aspect of the journal that teachers might use are all of the adds that are targeted

for teachers in the bottom corners of the journal. Since this is a magazine for teachers, the adds

are focused on the teacher population. There are many adds here that are for different books and

websites which could be extremely useful resources for the teacher to use. There are many

websites listed with professional development opportunities, worksheets, and many textbooks.

The third aspect of the journal that teachers might use are all of the provided activities

and worksheets given throughout the journal. There are very impressive worksheets and activates

given with clear instructions for how the student should lead and support the activities. Any

additional resource that teachers can use that contain and provide ideas for activities or

worksheets is a valuable resource. Since this journal is an NTCM journal, I support the

credibility and the validity of these activities and worksheets.

Communication speaks is a article that hones in on the importance of communication

within mathematics. There is a section that outlines the listening and the writing within
mathematics. There is also the focus on asking questions and explaining ideas properly. Teachers

can greatly benefit from all of the strategies of communication here. Communication tactics are

essential for all educators to learn and utilize to the best of their abilities.

Promote Problem-Solving Discourse is an article that focuses on the supportive

environment for students to go through the process of problem solving. The article gives many

examples of a safe problem-solving culture, and guidelines for support of classroom disclosure.

Creating a community of appropriate problem-solving is something that all educators should

strive for. It is crucial that all children engage and learn in a safe environment. When teachers

promote a problem-solving environment and discourse in their class, students will experience

math in a positive way.

 Online Review:

1) Within the classroom resources, there is a tab that includes monthly featured resources on the

site. It is important that teachers stay up to date with resources, and integrate new resources into

their classrooms. The monthly featured resources is a great way for teachers to obtain new

resources on a month-to-month basis.

2) There is a way to make an account with NCTM. This is called your “MyNCTM”. This way,

teachers can become members with the organization and obtain benefits and additional

information from the organization. This access would be extremely helpful for any educator.

3) There is a career center that is included on the website. There are featured jobs from across the

country that are available. This is a great resource for any math educator to find employment.
4) There is a tab that features grants and awards. This is valuable for any educator, since there is

an obvious lack of funds in all areas of education. All grants and awards are supported by the

NCTM, so there reliability is valid.

Online Review # 1

It is important that student have well develop executive functioning skills. Executive

Functioning attributes how people control their own thinking. EF components are highly

predictive of student academic achievement. This includes their functioning in math, and is an

extremely influential on both math and literacy. Executive functioning categories are (1)

inhibitory control, (2) working memory, and (3) attention shifting and cognitive flexibility.

Inhibitory control allows one to keep from acting impulsively.

Inhibitory Control is the immediate desire to properly calculate based on the given

phrase. The working memory allows one to hold the information in their own short-term

memory, and then process the information. Attention shifting and cognitive flexibility relate to

executive functioning processes that allow one to switch attention and apply flexible thinking.

“So, because developing both EF processes and mathematical proficiencies is essential for young

children, high-quality mathematics education may have the dual benefit of not only teaching this

important content area but also developing young children’s EF processes, using precious

instructional time wisely”. (IN TEXT CITATION HERE). Many mathematic problems and

activities can be manipulated to interact with different executive functioning.

Since executive functioning applies to many of the dependent skills needed for executive

functioning, teachers are able to work with executive function during math instruction. The

executive functioning. Different executive functioning has a direct effect on the mathematic
performance of the student. It is important that students apply flexibility within thinking at all

times. Students need instruction on developing EF, but the mathematics instruction should never

be sacrificed for the goal of executive function instruction, unless that is the primary target. It is

fair to mention that children facing high mathematical demands with high EF demands may

experience being overwhelmed. It is important to start young and build the executive functioning

and mathematic skills, and to be mindful and realistic of the age.

I think that as an educator, it is always important to refer to psychology and neuroscience

of the brain when analyzing student behavior. Executive function is an essential process of the

human brain. I think that it is critical that all educators not only learn about inhibitory control,

working memory, and attention shifting/cognitive flexibility, but structure instruction with these

things in mind. I thought that this article was an interesting read, and I learned a lot about

executive functioning within mathematics that I had not known. There were many instructional

strategies that had executive functioning that were mentioned as examples of instruction. I felt

like these were very valuable because I now know the importance of executive functioning.

Review #2

It is critical that students are engaged in tasks that promote both problem-solving and

reasoning. Reasoning and problem solving are both critical elements of math. The writer of the

article chose to have the camp at Stanford, and made the camp free to all who attended. The

writer of this article decided to test a different way of teaching mathematics, where they were

actively engaged in solving. This math camp had students from all different levels of

achievement. There was a particular draw from the writer to have children attend who had a
negative idea on themselves and math instruction. Many of the students who attended had the

common misconceptions that they were not good at math, and not a math person.

Students were taught lessons with tasks that promoted reasoning and problem solving. At

the end of 18 lessons, the students mathematical performance improved. The curriculum of the

camo was planned around four specific ideas. There was an emphasis on algebra as a problem-

solving tool. There was an emphasis on instruction through visual representations and models.

Students were encouraged to remember brain connections and the importance of developing the

understanding. Students were assisted in not only reasoning with themselves, but others as well.

Peers at the camp were able to comprehend by reasoning with one another.

Students were encouraged to be skeptics of their instruction and the mathematics. They

were influenced to ask basic questions surrounding how the student knows the method and why

it work, as well as how it can be proved. All of these questions are essential to problem-solving

tactics. The writer contributes a lot of reasoning to equity within mathematics. When a

collaboration within conversation occurs it helps all students articulate and gain the same

understanding about the content. The visual nature of the task is also very influential for the

overall reasoning with the task. When problem solving is required, all students are called upon to

engage when they are collaborating.

This was an extremely interesting article because of the way that it was structured about a

summer camp. The logistics of the students that attended were very broad, and I thought that it

was interesting that there was an intentional call for students who did not have much confidence

in their mathematical abilities. I appreciated that the camp was for free. There are so many

benefits to the problem-solving and reasoning based instruction. As a future educator, I am going
to support these process in my instruction. It was clear that the benefits that the student when

instruction occurred applying problem-solving and reasoning.

As I am currently a student in a math for elementary education class, and I plan on

teaching elementary education, the NCTM website and the journal Teaching Children

Mathematics are valuable resources. There is an extremely broad range of resources and supports

available through these platforms. As a future teacher, it is critical that I utilize any resource that

will help improve instruction for my students. The NCTM is an extremely reliable source for

mathematics instruction, and I intend on utilizing the website specifically for as long as I am an

educator.
 REFRENCE PAGE

Boaler, J. (May, 2019). Prove it to me! Teaching Children Mathematics. NCTM.org

Bostic, J. Jaccobe, T. (2010) Promote Problem-Solving Discourse. Teaching Children

Mathematics. 33-37.

Joswick, C. (and colleagues). (May, 2019) Double Impact: Mathematics and Executive

Functioning.

Teaching Children Mathematics. NCTM.org

Kinman, R. (2010). Communication Speaks. Teaching Children Mathematics.

Pg. 22-30