1 Mathematics Education Foundations

This first chapter focuses on developing the notion of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching and examining how content knowledge supports the current standards for mathematical practice and the content standards developed by various educational researchers and mathematics education organizations. Understanding these foundations prior to jumping into the rest of the content provides both an organizational framework and a foundation for the topics covered. Some of these ideas may challenge your ways of thinking, while others reinforce what you already know. We encourage you to go beyond what is written here and to read some of the original research articles and organization standards cited in this chapter.