Faculty Publications

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book/Conference Title Title

Iowa Council of Teachers of Mathematics Journal

Volume

34

First Page

4

Last Page

10

Abstract

I am fortunate. I teach from Investigations in Number, Data, and Space [TERC] (1996), a standards-based elementary mathematics curriculum. My evolution from teaching in a traditional teacher-centered approach to one that supports a student-centered community of learners has been a slow and gradual process during the past six years of teaching. Fortunately, through experience, professional development, and graduate level courses, I have come to appreciate the conceptual understanding students acquire from learning mathematics via a student-centered approach and how playing games is an effective instructional strategy for learning mathematics. As intended by the authors of Investigations and envisioned by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM] (2000), mathematical games foster communication as students explain and justify during play, as well as are motivating and engaging for students as they think about and apply mathematics concepts and skills (Lach & Sakshaug, 2005). Moreover, good games create opportunities for students to explore mathematical ideas (Olson, 2007) and are fun as well as educational (Hildebrandt, 1998) and provide the opportunity for me to structure lessons and activities that meet the needs of individual students and promote communication. If you value mathematics practice and view it as a worthwhile activity, you may want to incorporate games as part of your mathematics lessons.

Department

Department of Mathematics

Comments

First published in Iowa Council of Teachers of Mathematics Journal, v. 34 (2007), pp. 4-10, published by Iowa Council of Teachers of Mathematics

Original Publication Date

2007

Repository

UNI ScholarWorks, University of Northern Iowa, Rod Library

Copyright

© 2007 Iowa Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The copyright holder has granted permission for posting.

Date Digital

2007

Language

EN

File Format

application/pdf

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