Doing Math

Doing Math: I believe doing math means students are understanding the thinking behind the process they are taught. The act of doing math means students are not just plugging in numbers to an equation they were taught but actually knowing why they put the numbers where they do in the equation and where those numbers came from. Sometimes doing math means students will have to struggle through a problem to arrive at the final answer. They need to investigate different strategies to arrive at the final answer. By trying a number of strategies the student will make a genuine connection with the problem and finding a way to solve it. By trying different ways to solve the problem students make sense of the math they were taught and this is what I believe it means to be “doing math”.