Fostering Children’s Mathematical Power: An Investigative Approach To K-8 Mathematics Instruction

Teachers have the responsibility of helping all of their students construct the disposition and knowledge needed to live successfully in a complex and rapidly changing world. To meet the challenges of the 21st century, students will especially need mathematical power: a positive disposition toward mathematics (curiosity and self confidence), facility with the processes of mathematical inquiry (problem solving, reasoning and communicating), and well connected mathematical knowledge (an understanding of mathematical concepts, procedures and formulas). This guide seeks to help teachers achieve the capability to foster children’s mathematical power - the ability to excite them about mathematics, help them see that it makes sense, and enable them to harness its might for solving everyday and extraordinary problems. The investigative approach attempts to foster mathematical power by making mathematics instruction process-based, understandable or relevant to the everyday life of students. Past efforts to reform mathematics instruction have focused on only one or two of these aims, whereas the investigative approach accomplishes all three. By teaching content in a purposeful context, an inquiry-based fashion, and a meaningful manner, this approach promotes chilren’s mathematical learning in an interesting, thought-provoking and comprehensible way. This teaching guide is designed to help teachers appreciate the need for the investigative approach and to provide practical advice on how to make this approach happen in the classroom. It not only dispenses information, but also serves as a catalyst for exploring, conjecturing about, discussing and contemplating the teaching and learning of mathematics.