A central question for which teachers must be responsible is, "How well are the tasks, discourse, and environment working to foster the development of students' mathematical literacy and power?"

Trying to understand as much as possible about the effects of the mathematics classroom on each student is essential to good teaching. Teachers must monitor classroom life using a variety of strategies and focusing on a broad array of dimensions of mathematical competence, as outlined in the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for Schools Mathematics. What do students seem to understand well, what only partially? What connections do they seem to be making? What mathematical dispositions do they seem to be developing? How does the group work together as a learning community making sense of mathematics? What teachers learn from this should be a primary source of information for planning and improving instruction in both the short and the long term.