EDUO 9548: Mathematical Practice #7: Look for and Make Use of Structure

Course Overview

This course guides the teacher towards information that will help in the successful preparation, implementation and evaluation of a classroom lesson that fulfills mathematical practice #7 (Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.)

Course Objectives:

Relating to the Common Core Mathematical Practice Standard #7, the teacher will be able to:

1. explain the standard to people of varying abilities, ages & education
2. use different materials to teach the standard
3. develop an effective time line within a teaching plan
4. create assessment processes that evaluates the ability of the students to grasp the standard
5. analyze this class experience as to how well it helped prepare to teach the mathematical standard

Course Relation to CCS or other Professional Standards

CSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP7 Look for and make use of structure

Mathematically proficient students look closely to discern a pattern or structure. Young students, for example, might notice that three and seven more is the same amount as seven and three more, or they may sort a collection of shapes according to how many sides the shapes have. Later, students will see 7 × 8 equals the well remembered 7 × 5 + 7 × 3, in preparation for learning about the distributive property. In the expression x 2 + 9x + 14, older students can see the 14 as 2 × 7 and the 9 as 2 + 7. They recognize the significance of an existing line in a geometric figure and can use the strategy of drawing an auxiliary line for solving problems. They also can step back for an overview and shift perspective. They can see complicated things, such as some algebraic expressions, as single objects or as being composed of several objects. For example, they can see 5 – 3(x – y) 2 as 5 minus a positive number times a square and use that to realize that its value cannot be more than 5 for any real numbers x and y.