Considers traditional ways in which attempts have been made to help students become fluent in mathematics and offers a model for ways in which fluency can be achieved with a more economic use of students' time and effort than through traditional models of exercises based on repetition. (MKR)

Attempts to describe a notion parallel to number sense, called symbol sense, incorporating the following components: making friends with symbols, reading through symbols, engineering symbolic expressions, equivalent expressions for non-equivalent meanings, choice of symbols, flexible manipulation skills, symbols in retrospect, and symbols in…

Limitations in children's understanding of the symbols of arithmetic may inhibit choice of appropriate solution procedures. The teacher's role involves negotiation of new meanings for words and symbols to match extensions to solution procedures. (MKR)

Four methods of filling a square using programing with Logo are presented, with comments on children's solutions. Analysis of the mathematical or programing concepts underlying a few simple algorithms is the focus. (MNS)

The conceptual difference between understanding and algorithmic performance is examined first. Then some dilemmas that flow from these distinctions are discussed. (MNS)

The question is raised: What comes first: rules of calculation or the meaning of concepts? The pressures on the teacher to teach and simplify knowledge to algorithms are discussed. The relation between conceptual and procedural knowledge in school mathematics and consequences for the teacher's professional knowledge are considered. (DC)

Some concrete examples of the use of historical materials in developing certain topics from precalculus and calculus are presented. Ideas which can be introduced with a reformulated curriculum are discussed in five areas: algorithms, combinatorics, logarithms, trigonometry, and mathematical models. (MNS)

Investigates children's behaviors and conceptual achievements in the transition from informal calculation strategies to a written division algorithm. Describes five different strategies observed in the solution of division problems. Discusses the implications of the children's behavior. (YP)

Presents the text of a message sent to Susan Gerofsky by Robert Thomas after reading her article on a linguistic and narrative view of word problems in mathematics education. Gerofsky's response is also included. (DDR)

Compared and contrasted are the concepts intuition and logic. The ideas of conceptual thought and algorithmic thought are discussed in terms of the world as a labyrinth, intuition and time, and the structure of knowledge. (KR)