Tutoring and Teaching Math for Understanding

‘Tutoring and teaching math for understanding’ is an adaptation of Distinguished Professor Judit Moschkovich’s long-running course at UC Santa Cruz. The course provides: A research-based definition of conceptual understanding Examples of tasks that focus on conceptual understanding Tutoring/teaching principles to support learners’ conceptual understanding, and A summary of tutor/teacher questions that support conceptual understanding The course is intended for anyone interested in becoming a better math tutor or teacher. Upon completion, learners will be able to: Define conceptual understanding and procedural fluency. Identify math tasks that require conceptual understanding. Modify tasks that only require procedural fluency to require understanding. Recognize student responses that show understanding, and Identify research-based principles for tutoring or teaching math for understanding.

Assess students’ conceptual understanding. Support students’ conceptual understanding through a variety of guiding questions. Use multiple representations (i.e., drawings for fractions, tables/graphs for proportional reasoning) to support students’ conceptual understanding.