In this article, the author, a ninth grade teacher at a Title I high school, describes how she began her algebra classes with an open-ended research project, entitled Why Math? This project offered opportunities for students to reflect on why mathematics is important and to determine its relevance to them as individuals, that is, why…

By the time they reach middle school, all students have been taught to add fractions. However, not all have "learned" to add fractions. The common mistake in adding fractions is to report that a/b + c/d is equal to (a + c)/(b + d). It is certainly necessary to correct this mistake when a student makes it. However, this occasion also…

Students' lack of understanding about the relationships between geometry in two and three dimensions led the author to a surprising source of inspiration--the ancient philosopher and geometer Plato. From a theoretical perspective, the author's approach embodies the four instructional strategies that Eggen and Kauchak (2001) suggest for engaging…

Participants at the Summer Institute Pattern Exploration: Integration Math and Science in the Middle Grades used and developed a method treat arithmetic, algebra and geometry as one entity. The use of iterative geometric constructions is seen to reinforce the concepts of exponents, ratios and algebraic expressions for the nth stage of the…

The title may appear daunting, but the exercises, which can be presented to students from middle school to graduate school, are not. The exercises center on creating fractal images in the xy-plane with free. easy-to-use software and questions appropriate to the level of the student.