The first year of the grant successfully moved teachers to a more hands-on approach to teaching math.  Real life, hands-on lessons using manipulatives were constructed by the teachers and implemented in the classroom.
As we prepared for the second year we discovered many of our excellent lessons were skill based and did not provide students with learning opportunities in the actual math concepts.  Understanding the math concepts is essential to student’s success in math.
So, for the second year, we decided to continue with the Hands-on Approach to teaching but focused more tightly on the conceptual mathematics.  To achieve this, we brought in University of Southern Indiana Associate Professor Dr. Ruben Schwieger to be our math coach for 2004-2005.   Dr. Schwieger believes these elements are essential to teaching conceptually:

• Concepts are taught and learned differently from Processes and Facts
• Concepts cannot be memorized! Facts about concepts can be memorized.
• Concepts must be constructed.
• A concept is not fully constructed by a particular grade or age level. Layers  and further  additions to the concepts are (should be) continually added in subsequent grades.
• Concepts are constructed as the learner is presented with an adequate variety of examples which must vary over non-critical attributes AND counter-examples which vary over critical attributes. Critical and Non-Critical Attributes Example
• Concepts’ connections and relationships with other concepts must be shown.
• Initial concept learning cannot occur in cooperative learning settings
• Students should be informed that concept construction is expected so that they don’t try to use inappropriate learning methodology.