Important Points about CCSSM Standards for Mathematical Practice

The first standard I researched was: To make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
Here are some main points:

• It is important for students to gain and implement problem solving skills when it comes to mathematics. Instead of getting a math problem and jumping right into trying to solve it, this standard works towards students learning to understand the problem and to choose an approach that logically makes sense.
• Once the student solves the problem, students are to choose a different approach to check their answer. This shows students that there are many different ways to approach a problem and to still come to the same conclusions.
• This kind of mathematic problem solving will really show whether the student knows the topics well because the students must understand the different topics and be able to implement them in different situations.
• In this checking process, students are able to take a step back and look at their work. Students are then able to see whether or not their work answers the question or whether or not their answer makes sense.

The second standard I looked into was: Research abstractly and quantitatively.
Here are some main points:

• Students often struggle when it comes to thinking about abstract mathematical problems. The problem often lies in their ability to visualize what they are trying to solve.
• To overcome this, the standard wants students to use manipulatives and pictures to help symbolize these abstract ideas so the students are able to understand the problem and what they need to do in order to solve.
• Students should also be able to think quantitatively, or with numbers. For this portion, students will learn and will be able to understand the various units used to label numbers, convert from one unit to another, and understand what the number value is telling the students about the problem.