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Good Reads

Section Editor: Betti Kreye In this section, we feature mathematics literature that is appropriate for K - 12 Mathematics instruction. If you use specific literature for your mathematics classroom and wish to share it with the Virginia Mathematics Teacher Community, please respond to the Call for Manuscripts. This book review of Mathematize It! was provided by Jean Mistele.

that they can perform the calculation, something the authors call operation sense. For example, the operation sense for addition and subtraction word problems includes: add - on, take from, compare, and part - part - whole or sometimes referred to as put together/take apart problems. Teachers help students develop operation sense by exploring the problem context and the mathematics representations for them. The authors use 5 types of mathematical representations as informed by Lesh, et al, (1987) that include: verbal, contextual, concrete, pictorial, and symbolic. The mathematiz ing process is implemented using a sand box mod el: Enter – focus on reading comprehension and questioning; Explore – operation sense, represent and translate; Express – identify problem structure and justify solution. The remaining chapters are divided into two sec tions. Section one includes chapters 2 – 4 that fo cuses on addition and subtraction. Specifically, Chapter 2 explores and demonstrates Add to/Take From problems, in which the focus is on locating the change. Chapter 3 focuses on the part - part whole problems with attention on understanding the change in general. Chapter 4 tackles additive comparisons, which is another kind of relationship. Section 2 emphasizes multiplication and division in chapters 5 - 8 where, Chapter 5 examines equal groups multiplication problems, while Chapter 6 looks at equal - groups division, when one factor is missing. Chapter 7 looks at multiplicative compari sons and Chapter 8 unpacks area and array prob lems for two factors same job word problems, which also addresses both multiplication and divi sion. The authors end the book by providing guid ance to teachers in Chapter 9. In the chapter, the authors summarize their mathematizing model to help readers change their current word problem

Mathematize It!

By Sara Delano Moore, Kimberly Morrow - Leong, and Linda M. Gojak The esteemed authors wrote this book (Moore et al., 2020) for the grade band, 3 – 5 published in 2020. To be more specific, this is a workbook be cause the authors have spaces for readers to Try It Out in each chapter. The chapters have sections devoted to the Problem Situation, Sandbox Notes, A model for mathematizing the word problem, Teachers and Students think about the problem and they acknowledge the issues of language to under stand the mathematizing process, Key ideas, and Notes. The authors take the reader through the preparation process to implement these new prac tices in the classroom. In the introduction, the authors demonstrate, with an imaginary classroom, the shortcomings of using popular methods for teaching word problems, such as keywords, or a popular procedure such as CU BES. CUBES means: C – circle the important numbers, U -- underline important information, B – box the question, E – eliminate unnecessary infor mation, and S – solve and check. Fundamentally, these techniques fall short because students are not making sense of the problem, they focus on finding an answer. That is, students are not Mathematizing. Mathematizing on the other hand, is the process of constructing meaning in mathematics. It is con structed during the process of noticing, exploring, explaining, modeling, and convincing others within a mathematical argument. Essentially, students are learning to focus on the situation in the problem and the relationships and actions expressed in the word problem instead of procedures and specific numbers. The authors identify this process as the problem situation. The problem situation allows students to develop the structure of the problem so

Virginia Mathematics Teacher vol. 48, no. 1

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