Episode 75 - Counting is a Substitute for Sense Making

Welcome fellow Recovering Traditionalists to Episode 75.  Today we are taking a look at how Counting is a Substitute for Sense Making. “To encourage counting can actually interfere with the construction of number in that it is a rote process that may be devoid of any mathematical meaning.” When I read that sentence on page 15 of the book Coming to Know Number by Wheatley & Reynolds, my first instinct was to slam the book shut.  My shoulders immediately clenched up and I thought ‘How in the world can they say that!?!?  Counting and our number system is the basis for all mathematical ideas.’ In today’s episode I talk about what the book continues on to say and how my shoulders started to relax.  Get all the details from today’s episode over at buildmathminds.com/75 

Om Podcasten

The Build Math Minds podcast is for my fellow Recovering Traditionalists out there. If you don’t know whether or not you are a Recovering Traditionalist, here’s how I define us. We are math educators who used to teach math the traditional way. Flip lesson by lesson in the textbook, directly teaching step-by-step how to solve math problems. But now, we are working to change that to a style of teaching math that is fun and meets our students where they are at, not just teaching what comes next in the textbook. We want to encourage our students to be thinkers, problem solvers, and lovers of mathematics..we are wanting to build our students math minds and not just create calculators. If that is you, then this podcast is for you.