NCTM Principles to Action Teacher Practices - Teacher and Student Shifts

Practice 1: Establish math goals to focus learning

Teachers are shifting​ from ​stating-a-standard​ toward ​communicating-expectations-for-learning

Students:
● engage in discussion of the math purpose and goals related to their work.
● use the learning goals to stay focused on their progress in improving their understanding.
● connect their current work to previous work and see where the math is going.
● assess and monitor their own understanding and progress toward the mathematical goal.

Practice 2: Implement tasks that promote reasoning and problem solving

Teachers are shifting​ from ​routine tasks​ toward ​reasoning tasks

Students:
● persevere in exploring and reasoning through tasks.
● take responsibility for making sense of tasks by drawing on and making connections with their prior
understanding and ideas.
● use tools and representations as needed to support their thinking and problem solving.
● accept and expect that their classmates and teammates will use a variety of solution approaches and
that they will discuss and justify their strategies to one another.

Practice 3: Use and connect mathematical representations

Teachers are shifting​ from ​teaching about representations​ toward ​teaching through representations

Students:
● use multiple forms of representations to make sense of and persevere in understanding the
mathematics.
● describe and justify their mathematical understanding and reasoning with drawings, diagrams, and other
representations.
● make choices about which forms of representations to use as tools for solving problems.
● consider the advantages or suitability of using various representations when solving problems.

Practice 4: Facillitate meaningful mathematical discourse

Teachers are shifting​ from ​show-and-tell​ toward s
​ hare-and-compare

Students:
● present and explain ideas, reasoning, and representations to one another in pairs, small-group, and
whole class discourse.
● listen carefully to and critique the reasoning of peers, using examples to support or counterexamples to
refute arguments.
● seek to understand the approaches used by peers by asking clarifying questions, trying out others’
strategies, and describing the approaches used by others.
● identify how different approaches to solving a task are the same and how they are different.
 Practice 5: Pose purposeful questions
Teachers are shifting​ from asking ​questions that seek expected answers​ toward
using ​questions that illuminate and deepen student understanding

Students:
● expect to be asked to explain, clarify, and elaborate on their thinking.
● think carefully about how to present their responses to questions clearly, without rushing to respond
quickly.
● reflect on and justify their reasoning, not simply provide answers.
● listen to, comment on, and question the contributions of their classmates.

Practice 6: Build procedural fluency from conceptual understanding

Teachers are shifting​ from teaching so that ​students only replicate procedures t​ oward
teaching so that​ students select and explain appropriate strategies

Students:
● make sure that they understand and can explain the mathematical basis for the procedures that they
use.
● demonstrate flexible use of strategies and methods as well as reflect on which procedures seem to
work best for specific types of problems.
● determine whether specific approaches generalize to a broad class of problems.
● strive to use procedures appropriately and efficiently.

Practice 7: Support productive struggle in learning mathematics

Teachers are shifting​ from ​mathematics-made-easy ​toward ​mathematics-takes-time

Students:
● struggle at times with mathematics tasks but know that breakthroughs often emerge from confusion and
struggle.
● ask questions that are related to the sources of their struggles and that help them make progress in
understanding and solving tasks.
● persevere in solving problems and realize that is acceptable to say, “I don’t know how to proceed here,”
but it is not acceptable to give up.
● help one another without telling their classmates the answer or how to solve the problem.

Practice 8: Elicit and use evidence of student thinking

Teachers are shifting​ from ​looking at correct answers​ toward ​looking for students’ thinking

Students:
● reveal their mathematical understanding, reasoning, and methods in written work and classroom
discourse.
● reflect on mistakes and misconceptions to improve their mathematical understanding.
● ask questions, respond to, and give suggestions to support the learning of their classmates.
● assess and monitor their own progress toward mathematics learning goals and identify areas in which
they need to improve.