is very important that when we’re breaking the numbers up, we’re keeping the
value of the numbers right.”
Computation Strategies in an Inclusion Classroom
In this video, you see students in an inclusion classroom using a variety of strate-
gies to solve a computation problem. Through her questions, her recording of stu-
dents’ strategies, connections she makes to other strategies, and her summarizing
of what they did in their strategies, Heather works to help all the students in her
class make sense of the strategies they use and understand the mathematical ideas
that underlie them.
During part of an interview not included in the footage, Heather shares the
following reflections:
In the beginning of teaching, I agreed with people when they said, “Special needs
students should only be taught one strategy.” And then I realized the danger in that
is the same as lumping all kids together and saying, “Do this one way.” Within
[a group of ] students with special needs or students on IEPs [Individualized
Education Programs], there is such a range of disabilities, and a range of learning
abilities, and a range of everything that there is no one approach that meets every-
one’s needs, whether you’re special needs or not.
So, I like to expose students to the different strategies so that they have a way to
access [a problem]. I realize that there are certain strategies that are way more sophis-
ticated than some students can access, and we talk about that. We talk about that if
someone is sharing a strategy that you cannot understand at all, it’s OK to sort of shut
that off for a little bit, and not understand it. It’s OK to not understand it. It’s OK to
not try it. But if there is something that really seems to be like, “Oh wait, I know that.
I understand that,” then there’s no hurt in trying it and trying to make meaning of it.So, I think that students need to be exposed to all different strategies so that they
can figure out what actually is easy for them, as opposed to just memorizing some-
thing that is meaningless.In this video, you see how Heather Straughter carefully chooses strategies for stu-
dents to share during their whole-group discussions. She chooses at least one that
all students can understand, and she selects others that present opportunities to
highlight important mathematical ideas. By exposing students to a variety of
strategies and explicitly comparing the strategies and highlighting the mathe-
matical ideas in the strategies, her goal is that the students increase their compu-
tational fluency. Although some students may only be able to solve problems one
way, her goal is that they can explain that solution and that they might begin to
see connections with other methods.
MAKINGMATHEMATICSEXPLICIT