What themes do the Texas State Board of Educator Certification Standards identify that run through many math courses?

 

The SBEC Mathematics Standards include two standards addressing this question:

Standard V. Mathematical Processes: "The mathematics teacher understands and used mathematical processes to reason mathematically, to solve mathematical problems, to make mathematical connections within and outside of mathematics and to communicate mathematically."

Standard VI. Mathematical Perspectives: "The mathematics teacher understands the historical development of mathematical ideas, the interrelationship between society and mathematics, the structure of mathematics, and the evolving mature of mathematics and mathematical knowledge."

Note that Standard V includes four of the five underlying standards discussed in the NCTM Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. The themes in this standard run throughout all University math courses as well as all school mathematics courses.

The themes in Standard VI are not always included in all University math courses. Some courses that do address this standard are M315C: Functions and Modeling (which includes applications and the possibility of a historical paper), M326K: Foundations of Number Systems (which goes into the historical development of mathematical ideas involving numbers) and M358K: Applied Statistics (which includes applications to many subjects). Other courses may address this standard to some degree or another, depending on the instructor. This is one factor to take in consideration when deciding between two instructors for a particular course. The course Perspectives in Math and Science that is part of the UTeach requirements directly addresses this standard.

 

What themes do the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills include that run through many math courses?

 

The Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills include in their Basic Understandings for Algebra and Geometry:

Basic Undertanding6: Underlying mathematical processes. "Many processes underlie all content areas in mathematics. As they do mathematics, students continually use problem-solving, computation in problem-solving contexts, language and communication, connections within and outside mathematics, and reasoning, as well as multiple representations, applications and modeling, and justification and proof."