
The following graphic captures the essence of what matters about teaching and learning mathematics:
Though the concepts here are listed, there is not a hierarchy in terms of priority. The components are interwoven and the approach is cyclical.
Establishing a Mathematically Rich and Safe Environment
- Interacting and collaborating during learning;
- Emphasizing mathematics as a human endeavour;
- Fostering relationships;
- Providing an academically safe environment to take risks and make mistakes; and
- Sharing power, voice, and choice
“Mathematics and culture come to be seen as integral components of one another.”1 (Barta et al., 2014, p.4)
- Honouring the four directions/teachings of the Medicine Wheel;
- Creating care and connectedness – relationship within one’s self, with others, and with the natural world;
- Developing multiple pathways to learn and show what you know;
- Emphasizing the importance of story and place; and
- Sharing power, voice, and choice
Practising Holistic Assessment
- Triangulating data: conversations, observations, products;
- Honouring the learner (emotional, spiritually, academically and physically); and
- Using assessment for, as, and of learning via a variety of strategies.
- Creating experiences for students to engage with number relationships;
- Sharing power, voice, and choice;
- Making sense through dialogue and interactive experiences; and
- Teaching responsively (scaffold).
The Math teaching strategies in this Mathematics resource provide teachers with many options to weave ideas using indigenous ways of knowing/learning into their math lessons. (Myrna Turner, Cultural Coordinator, Muskoday First Nation Community School)
“The concept of life in numbers describes a relationship between the action, personality, and animation of numbers with the people using them in a given situation.”1 (Barta et al., 2014, p.3)
- Relationships exist between and within numbers;
- Multiple instructional approaches are used to build student understanding of number relationships; and
- Comparing, composing and decomposing, estimating, visualizing, and representing are used in connection with each other and are vital for developing number sense
- Bibliography
- Resources to Share
“Over the last 15 years, researchers have shown that learning is not just about accumulating knowledge; it is about the formation of an identity … not a stable construct … but as a set of ideas, beliefs, and behaviours that may be performed in specific domains, such as the learning of mathematics”2 (Boaler & Selling, 2017, p. 82).

Questions for reflection
How are these concepts interwoven?
How will you simultaneously develop these big ideas into your practice?
1Barta, J., Eglash, R., & Barkley, C. (2014). Introduction. In J. Barta, R. Eglash & C. Barkley (Eds.), Math is a verb: Activities and lessons from cultures around the world (p 3). Reston, VA: National Council of a Teachers of Mathematics.
2Boaler, J., & Selling, S. (2017). Psychological imprisonment or intellectual freedom? A longitudinal study of contrasting school mathematics approaches and their impact on adults’ lives. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 48(1), 78-105.
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