3.00 Credits
This course is designed for prospective elementary school teachers and will cover critical concepts necessary for elementary teachers to understand in order to competently teach mathematics topics from the K-8 school curriculum based on the Utah Common Core State Standards. See the Utah State Core Curriculum. Topics include: thinking critically, problem-solving techniques, sets and whole numbers, numeration and computation, number theory, base-10 understanding, integers, fractions and rational numbers, and decimal and real numbers. Although the topics covered may be familiar to students, they will be explored and examined from an advanced perspective in order to help students develop a deeper understanding of the mathematical ideas so that they can move beyond rote memorization and performing procedures without understanding. Some material will be beyond the scope of the elementary classroom but designed to give students additional understanding in order to help them make connections with the content and better prepare them for helping their future students. Students will learn to conceptualize the mathematical ideas & communicate orally and in writing in a variety of different ways (pictures, graphs, etc). Although teaching methods are not an explicit focus of this course, students will find many opportunities to consider how children think and learn the topics discussed which, therefore, will bring up teaching practices that can promote learning with understanding and provide a conceptual framework for analyzing common student misunderstandings in Grades K-8. Pre-Requisite: MATH 2000 or MATH 1050 both w/C or better Semester: Fall & Spring