Home of Every Student Counts

“Instructional programs that emphasize conceptual development, with the goal of understanding, can facilitate significant mathematics learning without sacrificing skill proficiency.”
(Heibert, 2003, p.16)

Components of Every Student Counts (ESC)

Iowa's mathematics educators are taking what we know from research and putting it into practice to improve K-12 student achievement. Iowa's ESC project has three fundamental research-based components:

• Teaching for Understanding
• Problem-Based Instructional Tasks
• Meaningful Distributed Practice

ESC based on
NCTM standards:

•Numbers & Operations
•Algebra
•Geometry
•Measurement
•Data Analysis/Probability
•Problem Solving
•Reasoning & Proof
•Communication
•Connections
•Representation

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The ESC goals are to 1) Improve achievement of K-12 students in mathematics and 2) Build learning communities engaged in the study of mathematics, mathematics instruction, and student achievement in mathematics through effective implementation of Iowa's Professional Development Model.

The Every Student Counts initiative states clearly that Teaching for Understanding emphasizes Problem-Based Instructional Tasks and Meaningful Distributed Practice, which are briefly described here.

“Learning for understanding is essential to enable students to solve the new kinds of problems they will inevitably face in the future.” (NCTM, 2000, p.21)

“Students who memorize facts or procedures without understanding often are not sure when and how to use what they know, and such learning is often quite fragile.” (NCTM, 2000, p.20; referencing Bransford, Brown, and Cocking, 1999)

Teaching for Understanding

• Posing Problem-Based Instructional Tasks
• Engaging student in the tasks and providing support as they develop their own representations and solution strategies
• Promoting discourse among students to share their solution strategies and justify their reasoning
• Summarizing the mathematics and highlighting effective representations and solution strategies
• Extending students thinking by challenging them to use effective representations and/or solutions strategies in new situations
• Listening to students and basing the instructional decisions on their understanding

Problem-Based Instructional Tasks

“Instructional programs that emphasize conceptual development, with the goal of understanding, can facilitate significant mathematics learning without sacrificing skill proficiency.” (Heibert, 2003, p.16)

• Help students develop a deep understanding of important mathematics
• Are accessible yet challenging to all students
• Encourage student engagement and communication
• Can be solved in several ways
• Encourage the use of connected multiple representations
• Encourage appropriate use of intellectual, physical and technological tools

Meaningful Distributed Practice

“Problem solving should be the site in which all of the strands of mathematics proficiency converge.” (Kilpatrick, Swafford, & Findell, 2001, p.421)

• Targets an identified need based on multiple data sources
• Helps students develop a deep understanding of a BIG IDEA
• Helps students develop flexibility and fluency with skills and concepts
• Builds on and extends understanding
• Uses problems and activities that help students learn to use multiple representations, and learn to use multiple reasoning strategies
• Uses problems from a variety of contexts so students learn to make connections

“Practice should be used with feedback to support all strands of mathematical proficiency and not just procedural fluency…practice on computational procedures should be designed to build on and extend understanding.” (Kilpatrick, Swafford, & Findell, 2001, p.423)

We are taking what we know from research and putting it into practice to improve student achievement because Every Student Counts.

For more information, contact: Judith Spitzli, Math Consultant, 515-281-3874 Iowa Department of Education, Grimes State Office Building Des Moines, IA 50319-0146 Iowa Department of Education http://www.iowa.gov/educate/ Website format: Diane Gere Associates Use of the background image is courtesy of DHD Multimedia Gallery PDF files are used on this site. Go to the Adobe website to download the free Acrobat Reader software. (rev 11-8-06)