Making Sense of Numbers (MSN) is the foundational course with content focused on the base ten structure of our number system. Number Sense Routines (Shumway, 2011) is the mathematical practice emphasized to support children’s development of number sense.
Big Ideas:
- Understand that each place represents 10 times that of the place to its right.
- Understand that numbers can be decomposed and composed to compute and increase flexibility with numbers.
- Understand that invented strategies use the properties of operations.
Course Goals
Participants will understand the following:
- Students’ number sense is foundational to understanding mathematical concepts.
- Student interviews provide useful information for adjusting instruction and designing appropriate support for each learner.
- The information gathered from student interviews and the integration of Number Sense Routines enables teachers to provide opportunities for students to develop deeper mathematical understanding and connections.
- The base ten system is a complex concept for students to grasp and is the core to understanding the mathematical system.
Participants will accomplish the following:
- Recognize why being able to label the tens place and the ones place, or even being able to count by tens, does not necessarily signal an understanding that 1 ten is simultaneously 10 ones.
- Recognize similarities and differences in the spoken and written systems for representing number, and recognize the difficulties students face in learning about the written system.
- Understand how students’ invented multi-digit addition and subtraction procedures can be the starting places for deeper understanding of the tens structure itself and its behavior in computation.