Making Sense: Teaching and Learning Mathematics with Understanding provides a framework that describes five dimensions that are critical to understanding:

• tasks,
• teacher�s role,
• social culture,
• tools, and
• equity.

The teacher�s ability to integrate these five dimensions will contribute to the development of classrooms that support students� mathematical understanding and sense-making abilities. The book defines mathematical understanding and helps frame the issues related to teaching and learning for understanding. The essential features of each of dimension is fully described and supplemented with illustrative examples to help teachers understand how to integrate the dimensions into their own classrooms.
This book provides guidance to think about designing classrooms where mathematical understanding is at the heart of instructional practices. It is intended to help teachers of mathematics wrestle with the idea of �What is understanding?� and how different interpretations and views about mathematics learning impact teaching.

Authors: James Hiebert, Thomas P. Carpenter, Elizabeth Fennema, et. al.