2013 Conference Proceedings - University of Nevada, Las Vegas

dynamic approach to learning content that incorporates the idea that content cannot be presentedin a way that is divorced from what goes on in the classroom. The objectives of the projectincluded developing deep mathematics content knowledge for teachers; increasing teachers’ useof instructional strategies that include problem solving, reasoning, and communication; createand evaluate Educative Curriculum Materials (Davis and Krajcik, 2005) that strengthen teacherand student mathematics content knowledge; and develop a professional teaching communitythrough the use of Lesson Study (Lewis, Perry, & Murata, 2006).MethodologyKARES was conceptualized in three phases: Phase 1 involved an in-depth look at content ofelementary school mathematics. Phase 2 involved researching and investigating selected contentat each grade level, with a focus on developing related curriculum materials. Phase 3 involvedplanning and conducting research lessons to investigate the interaction between teaching andlearning at each grade level. The phases were not necessarily disjoint. Because they moredirectly relate to this paper, Phases 2 and 3 are described relative to the effort of the kindergartenteachers.Phase 2 - Researching the content at the kindergarten levelThe kindergarten teachers began Phase 2 by investigating the Hawai‘i Content andPerformance Standards, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) focal points forkindergarten (NCTM, 2008), and initial drafts of the Common Core State Standards forMathematics (CCSSM) (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council ofChief State School Officers [CCSSI], 2010). They discussed what it meant for kindergartenstudents to understand the NCTM focal points and how the ideas compared and contrasted withthe kindergarten standards in the CCSSM. As they were researching the CCSSM kindergartenstandards the teachers engaged in lengthy discussions as to the meaning of some standards anddevelopmentally appropriate instructional sequences needed to implement the intent of thestandards. They eventually focused on operations and numbers for their research, materialsdevelopment, and lesson development. These discussions helped them in their planning for Phase3. When documenting their planning, Higa-Funada (2011) wrote, “When planning for the firstlesson in 2011 – 2012 we examined the CCSD (her acronym for CCSSM). As it was early in theyear, we wanted to focus on multiple ways to know a number. Even though the CCSD standardfor this was more limiting than we thought, we decided to delve into...ways of knowing 10.”Proceedings of the 40 th Annual Meeting of the Research Council on Mathematics Learning 2013 102