Developing Essential Understanding of Multiplication and Division for Teaching Mathematics in Grades 3-5

Author: Albert Otto Edition: First ISBN: 0873536673 Number Of Pages: 84 Publisher: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Details: Move beyond the mathematics you expect your students to learn.Unpacking the ideas related to multiplication and division is a critical step in developing a deeper understanding. To those without specialized training, may of these ideas might appear to be easy to teach. But those who teach in grades 3-5 are aware of their subtleties and complexities.This book identifies and examines two big ideas and related essential understandings for teaching multiplication and division in grades 3 5. Big Idea 1 captures the notion that multiplication is usefully defined as a scalar operation. Problem situations modeled by multiplication have an element that represents the scalar and an element that represents the quantity to which the scalar applies. Big Idea 2 relates to the algorithms that problem solvers have invented some of which have become standard for multip