How this blog will work
For almost 15 years I’ve been doing professional development sessions on what it means to build fluency in mathematics. This blog is an attempt to bring a wider group of math educators into the discussion, with the goal of challenging and strengthening the working definition of fluency that I have developed over the years.
To start things off, I will be posting a series of problems that will allow readers to explore what students do and do not understand about a common mathematical representation, the number line. The initial goal will be to nail down the most fundamental concepts and strategies that allow students to solve number line problems with whole numbers. From there, we will explore a continuum of more sophisticated number line problems, concepts, and strategies.
This initial investigation of how students solve number line problems will allow me to introduce a conceptual organizer that I call a Fluency Pyramid. Without getting into the details, the Fluency Pyramid will help emphasize the importance of informal strategies and how they lay the foundation for more advance and formal techniques.
We will then explore Fluency Pyramids for other areas of mathematics. The idea will be to generalize a definition for building fluency and see that it applies to concepts and skills taught in the primary grades as well as college classrooms. We will also discuss how fluency applies to our own learning, whether that happens to be math content or instructional strategies. In an important way, the concept of fluency will really hit home when we appreciate that it applies to our own learning.
Along the way we will challenge, retool, and refine a definition for building fluency in mathematics. We will also get a chance to debate instructional strategies, classroom management, assessment, implementation strategies, and other topics that affect math teachers and administrators.
So, head over to the blog posts and join in the fray.
Peter Sickler
- Author of print and online instructional resources and assessments
- PD facilitator for math-ed instructional strategies and content
- Consultant for curriculum implementation and math leadership
- Co-founder of MobiusMath Corporation
- Educational designer of the MobiusMath Content and Assessment Platform