Practice Tests

Chapter 1: How Students Learn Mathematics and What Mathematics We Want Them to Learn

1. How might you convince someone that an over-focus on procedures might be detrimental to student learning?
2. Carpenter and Lehrer advocate a classroom where there is student autonomy. What do you think student autonomy might mean in a learning situation and why might it be valuable?
3. How might a perspective on math as a focus on patterns affect the teaching of a topic, for example, measurement?
4. A new initiative of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has been the development of Curriculum Focal Points to highlight a more limited set of content for each grade level. Why might this be a good thing? Why might it not?
5. How did your own math teachers seem to view what mathematics is? What evidence do you have to support this?