NCTM+Insitute+on+Reasoning+and+Making+Sense,++July+2011


 * Event Title: 2011 NCTM Institute on Reasoning and Making Sense**
 * Date: July 27 - July 30, 2011**
 * Location:Orlando, FL**
 * Name(s) of Attendees: Henry Stavisky**

Description of Workshops, Classes, Institutes, Etc.:
A high school mathematics program based on reasoning and sense making will prepare students for citizenship, for the worksplace, and for further study. This Institute focused on how to prepare students for possible postsecondary work and study in three board areas: (1) Mathematics for Life (2) Mathematics for the workplace (3) Mathematics for scientific and technical community Mathematical reasoning can be developed through statistical reasoning:

"Statistics is increasingly recognized as essential for students' success in dealing with the requirements of citizenship, employment, and continuing education. Consequently, the priority of statistical reasoning must be a high priority for school mathematics."

How I Hope to Apply What I Learned At Ransom, and/or, What My Colleagues Might Try at Ransom:

 * How to conduct a more meaningful class room discussion that engages students (the five practices: anticipating, monitoring, selecting, sequencing, and connecting.
 * How to use a monitoring tool to enhance class discussion, reasoning and learning. Why going around the room is not enough and saying "who wants to present next" is inappropriate.
 * Why statistical reasoning skills are a very important part of not only mathematics but in all disciplines, making it a great interdisiplinary subject
 * Why and how the state of FL is changing its core requirements to include more statistics and revising its testing program.
 * Why statistics should be introduced earlier than 6th grade.
 * Why and how technology should be used as a teaching and exploratory tool. The TI-NSPIRE is an excellent tool to achieve this.
 * Why some mathematics textbooks have missed the boat in the way the questions are designed. They pretty much give the answers away without requiring the students to think.
 * How students can read our facial expressions and interfere with the reasoning skills.
 * Develop interesting projects such as the monopoly game (regression) and ways of explaining conditional probability
 * Why students need to physically see the answer rather than just reading the solution as "the ball goes into the net." There are many websites that allow for demonstration and modeling of the real world.

Important Links, Resources, or Contacts:
[|www.nctm.org/reasoning] Focus on High School Mathematics: Reasoning and Sense Making is Algebra, Geometry, and Statistics & Probability Smith, et al (2011) Five Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematical Discussions (NCTM)