Mathematics

Please watch this video for an explanation and a classroom example.

The modernization of math teaching and learning practices involves adopting evidence-based strategies that enhance student understanding, reasoning, and problem-solving skills. Cherry Creek Schools’ approach to modernizing math emphasizes the power of pictures and student-centered learning to develop a deeper understanding of and connection to mathematics. 

Modernizing math teaching involves: 

• Facilitating a positive relationship with math, resulting in a student who identifies as a powerful math thinker.
• Using advancements in neuroscience to adjust our teaching practices to how brains naturally learn. This practice utilizes the power of pictures (the ability to mentally visualize and think about mathematics), concrete experiences with our senses, and connections to lived experiences.
• Ensuring that students are at the center of each lesson by allowing them to explore math concepts individually and in groups, prior to the teacher explaining how to solve a problem. This allows students to better develop their problem solving skills, and allows the class to develop a deeper understanding of math by coming together to discuss a math concept, rather than memorizing the explanation provided by the teacher. This teaching strategy is known as “you do, we do, I do.” Watch this video to learn more about this method.

• Establishing clear learning goals for mathematics
• Promoting reasoning and problem-solving tasks
• Connecting mathematical representations
• Facilitating meaningful mathematical discourse
• Using purposeful questions to assess and advance student reasoning
• Supporting productive struggle in learning mathematics

Watch this video to hear more about why and how developing a deep understanding of math is important for student success. 

Often when our students say that they are not a “math person,” this is because they struggle with high-level math after memorizing math rules and procedures in early years, rather than developing a deep understanding of a concept. When students develop a deep understanding of a mathematical concept, it allows them to apply this reasoning to more complex math, whereas students who use memorization to learn math must apply rules and procedures that they do not fully understand to more complex math, and then memorize additional rules and procedures at this high level, while never developing a deep understanding of the concept. Memorization becomes more frustrating for students as math becomes more complex at higher levels. 

This is the use of visuals or physical objects to make sense of math concepts. When we use pictures or physical objects to understand mathematical concepts, our brain is able to develop a deeper understanding of these concepts that students can apply throughout the rest of their learning journey, rather than memorizing mathematical rules and procedures which become difficult to apply as math becomes more complex.