At Reading Sage I published an article titled “Common Core Mathematics Explained, Examined and Unpacked”.

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Have you ever asked yourself what’s the main purpose of teaching computation—addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division—in a world where adults and children alike have iPhones, tablets, calculators, and other devices at their fingertips?
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The answer is not to know how to carry out the algorithm. Fifty years ago, the how-to was the main purpose. But today, if we just teach children how to add, how to subtract, or how to multiply, we will not be meeting our higher call. We would actually be failing our pedagogical mission, as the children would always lose out to calculators and computers, even cheap ones for that matter! Deep mathematical thinking or algebraic thinking is our higher purpose in teaching elementary school number and computation.
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Read all at Reading Sage.