Journal Summary: Constructing Meaning: Standards for Mathematical Practice

Teachers at an institute discussed the Standards for Mathematical Practice (SMP). At the institute they talked about what they liked, didn't like, understood and needed more clarification. Stephens and Barlow look into SMP 2, 4, 7, and 8. For SMP 2 teachers noted this to be the one to make the least amount of sense. They wanted clarification. This standard is "reason abstractly and quantitatively." Teachers wanted a better interpretation for abstract. The teacher came up with the words contextualize and decontextualize when discussing reasoning abstractly. The meaning for SMP 4, "model with mathematics," can be taken and used in two different ways. The first is modeling mathematics, which is using manipulatives, graphs, and pictures to help represent the problems being done. The next is modeling with mathematics, the way I had not really thought about the standard, using mathematics to solve the problems of everyday lives, society, and the environment. Finally, at the institute teachers mention having a hard time distinguishing between SMP 7 and SMP 8. SMP 7 is "look of and make use of structure" while SMP 8 is "look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning." I can see where it is hard to distinguish the two or not understand why we have two SMPs for the same idea. A teacher at the institute says SMP 7 is "exploitation of structure within a problem" while SMP 8 is "exploitation of structure across problems." When I first read this I was so confused but now it makes sense. In one problem the student can grasp the concept/pattern and then later in a more complicated problem they can use that concept in a different way.

I really enjoyed this article because it helps see the standards in a different way. This provided an opportunity to hear insight on the standards, issues, and explanations. I didn't think of some of these topics the way they were presented so it really helped me in that aspect.




http://www.nctm.org/Publications/teaching-children-mathematics/2015/Vol21/Issue6/Constructing-Meaning_-Standards-for-Mathematical-Practice/