In the transition to middle school, and during the middle school years, students' motivation for mathematics tends to decline from what it was during elementary school. Formative assessment strategies in mathematics can help support motivation by building confidence for challenging tasks. In this study, the authors developed and piloted a…

Effective competition in a rapidly growing global economy places demands on a society to produce individuals capable of higher-order critical thinking, creative problem solving, connection making, and innovation. We must look to our teacher education programs to help prospective middle grades teachers build the mathematical habits of mind that…

The purpose of this study was to understand the mathematical content knowledge new teachers have both before and after taking a mathematics methods course in the NYCTF program. Further, the purpose was to understand the attitudes toward mathematics and concepts of self-efficacy that Teaching Fellows had over the course of the semester. The sample…

This paper defines correlation, describes the Mix It Up program, discusses the teachers' beliefs about the value of correlating mathematics and science prior to program participation, and identifies problems teachers associated with correlation before and during the program. Teachers' beliefs about the value of correlation and about the problems…

This article describes a professional development course intended to improve the content understanding of middle school mathematics teachers. The design of the course included three professional learning strategies: problem solving, examination of student thinking, and discussion of research. The concepts studied in the course included multi-digit…

Reports a case study in which a first-grade teacher's instructional decisions were affected by the pedagogical content knowledge concerning problem solving received during a four-week summer workshop on teacher's beliefs about teaching in conjunction with the teacher's beliefs that students can solve any problem they are given. (MDH)