Best Practices - High School

In addition to the recommendations for Best Practices in Mathematics, the following concepts are particularly important for High School Students (grades 9-12):

• Expect all students to take mathematics for four years.
• Provide a variety of mathematics opportunities to allow for different interests and career directions.
• Use instructional materials that are intentionally designed to weave together different content strands.
• Provide opportunities to develop deeper mathematical understanding.
• Emphasize technology.
  They should continue to develop facility with such technological tools as spreadsheets, data-gathering devices, computer algebra systems, and graphing utilities that enable them to solve problems that would require large amounts of computational time if done by hand.
  Provide opportunities to study mathematics all four years
• Courses designed to prepare students for the new calculus should:
  • cover fewer topics ... with more emphasis on fundamental concepts.
  • place less emphasis on complex manipulative skills.
  • teach students to think and reason mathematically, not just to perform routine operations....
  • emphasize modeling the real world and develop problem-solving skills.
  • make use of all appropriate calculator and computer technologies....
  • promote experimentation and conjecturing.
  • provide a solid foundation in mathematics that prepares students to read and learn mathematical material at a comparable level on their own.
• Provide career exploration.

(Source: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, http://standards.nctm.org/document/chapter7/index.htm)