Place Value Essay

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Teaching place value using the principles of teaching mathematics for understanding When preparing to teach mathematic lessons there are many factors that need to be taken into consideration. These factors include grade, concepts, children in your class, their prior knowledge, the relevance of your lesson, and the approach you will be using and many other important factors. Needless to say this can be a very daunting exercise for most educators, and so often it is completely avoided. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) produced a set of guidelines known as the principles and standards for school mathematics in order to assist mathematics teachers when preparing lessons for their classes. The NCTM consists of many professionals such as school administrators, teachers and professors their main goal being to use both the principles and the standards they decided on to continuously improve mathematics education in classrooms. The principles describe features of a high quality mathematics education (NCTM, 2000). The standards describe the mathematical content and skills that students should learn. This essay focuses on the implementation of the principles when teaching place value to a grade 2 class. There are six principles of teaching mathematics for understanding. They are equity, curriculum, teaching, learning, assessment, and technology (Spitzer, 2008). What is place value? Place value is the basis of our entire number system. This number system is known as the binary number system. A place value system is one in which the position of a digit in a number determines its value. In the standard system called base ten, each place to the right represents ten times of that to the left (Boynton, 2012). For instance to the right of the unitary position is the tens position therefore one times ten will give us ten. The ability to understand and to

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