Editorial

Abstract

One of the most venerable and vexing issues in mathematics education concerns the trade-off between proficiency and comprehension, between promoting the smooth performance of a mathematical procedure and developing an understanding of how and why that procedure works and what it means. The trade-off is obviously not either-or; rather, as William Brownell pointed out over 30 years ago, some balance needs to be found between meaning and skill. Amid today's arguments that technology has modified, and sometimes supplanted, the skills students need, the issue has grown into not just achieving a balance but finding a balance point.