Algebra Success Keys - In-depth Overview
The Algebra Success Keys (ASK) guide is a compilation of research-based practices developed to help teach algebra to students with diverse learning needs. A foundation in algebraic thinking begins in grades K-5 and continues through the middle school grades to high school algebra. It is important to recognize that in the development of algebraic thinking, students should be able to understand abstract concepts, if the concepts are developed gradually from concrete to semi-concrete or representational to abstract over a period of time (Miller & Mercer, 1993).
The purpose of the Algebra Success Keys (ASK) is to provide teachers in grades K-12 with research-based strategies in instruction, assessments, accommodations, and technology to help students learn algebraic thinking. Math teachers and special education teachers should use this guide to enhance their teaching of algebraic thinking skills to students with diverse learning needs. This guide should be used in conjunction with action research. Action research allows a teacher to understand and reflect what they are learning as well as how and what the students are learning.
The Algebra Success Keys (ASK) is not a curriculum. It is a resource available to teachers to improve student learning of algebra in grades K-12. ASK should be used to help teachers teach algebraic thinking using three levels of learning (Concrete-Representational-Abstract) as well as to meet the needs of individual students. It is based on selected “big ideas” taken from the NCTM Standards, Florida Sunshine State Standards, and research related to the teaching of algebraic thinking using the three levels of learning: Concrete, Representational (or Semi-Concrete), and Abstract (Miller & Mercer, 1993; Witzel, Mercer, & Miller, 2003). The research-based strategies, accommodations, and technology within this guide are infused within the framework of these levels of learning. In addition, resources and materials have been developed, field-tested, and revised to meet the Sunshine State Standards in the algebraic thinking strand in Mathematics. Efficacy studies during implementation in several pilot sites have produced student achievement gains.
One of the main goals of the Algebra Success Keys (ASK) is to provide guidance and support for the development and implementation of algebraic thinking instruction in Grades K-12. This goal is a very timely, prudent and worthwhile when we consider the following facts about algebraic thinking:
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Instructional Strategies:
- it is one of the few central themes that serve to organize, unify and give coherence to mathematics at all levels;
- it is one of the most important areas of emphasis in the Principle and standards for school mathematics (NCTM, 2000); and
- it is one of the mathematics topics that have been researched abundantly, including evidence of students’ misconceptions in this area.
