How do educational opportunities influence students' academic achievement in the Dominican Republic? How do students grow, in knowledge and skills, as a result of their passage through the elementary grades? This study aims to explore and understand the differences between the implemented curriculum in public and private schools in 4th, 5th, and…

In 2004, the U.S. Department of Education's Policy and Program Studies Service contracted with SRI International and its partner, Policy Studies Associates, to undertake an evaluation of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers. The following evaluation questions informed this study: (1) What is the nature of activities in centers that are…

This study describes the Math and Science Partnership Program Evaluation (MSP-PE) during the project's first two years and provides the evaluation framework being used to assess the National Science Foundation's MSP Program. The study conveys the MSP-PE's ongoing design and implementation. To show how they reflect the nature of the MSP Program,…

This book derives from a series of sessions in which a study group of elementary teachers and their principals discussed children's mathematical work in relation to alternative assessment. The purposes of this book to describe the next tier of work for teachers in alternative assessment and how that work can be applied to elementary mathematics:…

In 3 experiments, the authors examined mathematical problem solving performance under pressure. In Experiment 1, pressure harmed performance on only unpracticed problems with heavy working memory demands. In Experiment 2, such high-demand problems were practiced until their answers were directly retrieved from memory. This eliminated choking under…

This brief article describes a few entertaining math "puzzles" that are easy to use with students at any grade level and with any operation. Not only do these puzzles help provide practice with facts and operations, they are also self-checking and may lead to some interesting big ideas in algebra.

"Progress in Mathematics[C] 2006" is a new core curriculum for students in kindergarten through grade 6. "Progress in Mathematics[C] 2006" differs substantively from "Progress in Mathematics[C] 2000" in both content and assessment material. "Progress in Mathematics[C] 2006" uses a sequence of systematic…

What is a routine question? The focus of this paper is routine questions and time (in years) since a hitherto routine question was last attempted by the solver. The data comes from undergraduate students' work on solving two calculus questions. The data was selected for reporting purposes because it is well documented and because it threw up…

This article discusses how math teachers at San Marcos High School turned to an online curriculum and in-class assessments to increase student achievement. Setting aside their 7-year-old textbooks, teachers filled the void largely with an online math curriculum, called Agile Mind, that comes equipped with an array of assessment tools. The idea was…

This nonexperimental, longitudinal field study examines the extent to which variation in observed classroom supports (quality of emotional and instructional interactions and amount of exposure to literacy and math activities) predicts trajectories of achievement in reading and math from 54 months to fifth grade. Growth mixture modeling detected…

Provides an annotated list of resources to aid in teaching mathematics, including Web site addresses for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Mathematics and Science Education, and the Association of Teachers of Mathematics, United Kingdom. (NB)

Describes how school improvement goals align with the Illinois Learning Standards to ultimately develop a school's mathematics goals. Reports that "Math Wizard Wednesdays" were offered as part of a school-wide goal, and as an intervention for students and staff that served as an ongoing reminder of improvement goals. (Contains 11 figures…

Students, parents, and sometimes even teachers often believe that complex mathematics is too difficult for certain learners. But the programs described in this article demonstrate that anyone can learn, understand, and use complex math. Lesa M. Covington-Clarkson boosted the confidence of black 6th graders by teaching them to use graphing…

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how collaborative problem solving affects individual mathematical problem-solving ability. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations were conducted, focusing on four students in the same fourth grade mathematics class in Taipei, Taiwan, as they participated in two steps of individual problem-solving…

This paper is based on the on-going research work and teaching carried out in the Mathematics Foundations Course (MFC) at Goldsmiths College, University of London. It is argued that teaching adult students mathematical investigation has given insight into the way they learn mathematics better and removes the barriers of mathematics phobia. It…