Background/purpose: The Computational Thinking ability has become a fundamental skill in the 21st century and has been integrated into educational curricula in various countries. For this curricular integration to be effective, it is essential that teachers are prepared to incorporate the development of this competency into their practices. In…

This paper explores the correlation between mental calculation performance and the frequency of using written algorithms in mental calculation tasks. Mental calculation is a mathematical tool used in everyday life situations during and after our formal education. After presenting an overview of the professional literature on this topic, the paper…

Examines problem-solving results among second-grade students in three schools that were all using a reformed mathematics curriculum. Except for one problem, more students used a mental procedure than the standard written algorithms, and both methods were used with approximately the same degree of accuracy. (AIM)

Results of this study, done with underachieving ninth graders, indicate that flow charting as a structure for basic skills instruction can be considered as effective as the traditional approach. (MK)

This study was implemented to test the relative effectiveness of two subtraction procedures (decomposition and equal addends) with respect to accuracy in solving subtraction problems requiring regrouping. Results favor the decomposition approach. (MP)

This paper discusses an approach to the study of algorithms which values students' construction of nonstandard algorithms but also emphasizes the essential roles of the teacher and instructional activities in supporting the development of students' numerical reasoning. Episodes are presented from a 3rd grade classroom in which a 9-week teaching…

A survey of general mathematics students whose teachers were taking an inservice workshop revealed that they had not yet mastered division. More direct introduction of the standard division algorithm is favored in elementary grades, with instruction of transitional processes curtailed. Weaknesses in transitional algorithms appear to outweigh…

This study investigated the relationship between the level of conservation of displaced volume and the degree to which sixth graders learn the volume algorithm of a cuboid, i.e., volume = length x width x height (v = l x w x h). The problem is a consequence of an apparent discrepancy between the present school programs and the theory of Piaget…

Two questions were investigated in this study: (1) How did the computational proficiency of sixth graders who had one year's experience with Developing Mathematical Processes (DMP) materials compare with an equivalent group of students who used the usual textbook program; and (2) What occurs when sixth graders study algorithms as sequences of rule…

Fourteen research reports related to mathematics education are abstracted and analyzed. Two of the reports deal with teacher education, two with problem solving, three with basic operations, and one each with learning disabled students, rational numbers, proportional reasoning, counting, teacher effectiveness, group cooperation on mathematical…

This document analyzes one chapter of a textbook for college remedial mathematics. This analysis is done by one of the textbook authors. The chapter under discussion deals with fractions. The text authors, writing from a constructivist perspective, attempted to write problems which not only developed specific conceptual and heuristic objectives…

The concept of multiplication is described and illustrated using several different representational systems. A conceptual approach to teaching mathematics is compared with the procedural approach commonly found in the school curriculum. Four different methods of representing the multiplication process with numbers larger than ten are presented:…