While many students can succeed with traditional instruction, quality instruction today seeks to resolve a key shortcoming in that form of instruction. The problem arises when students are made to memorize steps to an algorithm or procedure that makes little sense to them or that they don't understand. In upper level classrooms we see students who are the product of that method of teaching. They have memorized a method or procedure with no understanding of how or why it works! They use it to rotely solve problems and get right answers, rather than to think about and make sense of a mathematical situation. Thus, when they are hit with a problem and forget a key step, they often have no strategic way of proceeding. Or if they get an answer that makes no sense given the problem, they do not question it because the method they have memorized is about manipulating individual numbers ("carry ... borrow ... bring down ...," etc.), and not about analyzing the overall problem or mathematical situation posed.
Investigations aims to have students develop and understand solution strategies and why they work. It seeks to have math "make sense" to young learners. It seeks to develop multiple solution strategies beyond the algorithms traditionally taught.
