As shown by MetLife's 2010 "Survey of the American Teacher," America's educators strongly believe that all students should graduate from high school ready for college and a career (85 percent). Additionally, according to MetLife's 2009 survey, 86 percent of teachers believe that setting high expectations for students will improve student…

The Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt addresses concerns related to constructivism and instructional design that were raised in an earlier issue. Relationship of ecological psychology and constructivist theory is described, constraints on constructed knowledge are discussed, and the complexity of the Jasper series of math problems that…

The Math Lab is a creative approach to teaching math concepts. Students are introduced to skills through several conceptual levels. Concrete level activities are followed by semiconcrete, semiabstract, and abstract levels of instruction. Examples of teaching methods for each level are offered. (DF)

An alternating treatments design was used to evaluate the effects of the interspersal procedure on an elementary student who was referred to a school psychologist for high rates of off-task behavior during independent seatwork. Results showed that the procedure increased the student's on-task levels during classroom mathematics assignments.…

This study of Chicago teachers' assignments in mathematics and writing in grades 3, 6, and 8 shows that students who received assignments requiring more challenging intellectual work also achieved greater than average gains on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills in reading and mathematics, and demonstrated higher performance in reading, mathematics,…

Investigates children's difficulty in understanding (numerical) place value. A counting and estimating task, based on Piaget's number theory, was devised to determine if children in grades one through five evidenced this construction. (Author/BB)

This study attempted to identify the things that help elementary school students solve verbal problems. Among the types of things included for examination were: the attributes of problems, the tools used, and the problem transformations that were possible. The summary of findings is comprised of 29 diverse types of statements grouped under four…

An ethnographic approach with added quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis was used to study the extent and nature of technology-based materials in 15 elementary school mathematics classrooms. The blend of methods provided rich and varied information and gave insights either type of analysis could not provide alone. (SLD)

In order to discern the manner and determinants of instructional grouping both within and across classrooms of varying characteristics, this investigation employs a "multi level" approach. Specifically, an attempt was made to answer the following questions: How do the expenditure levels of school districts and the economic backgrounds…

A guide to behavioral objectives for elementary school mathematics published in the Assyrian language contains the complete sequence of objectives for the first four levels, covering kindergarten and grade 1. The levels include the average number of objectives the student should cover in a specific time period. The program gives the child the…

The study investigated which addition facts children and preservice teachers view as being difficult, whether it is possible to determine facts which are difficult for all children, and whether children and adults agree on which facts are difficult. Results indicated that children and adults disagree about the difficulty of facts. (PK)

This final report describes activities and accomplishments of a project which developed, implemented, and evaluated the effectiveness of a microcomputer/videodisc math instructional management system for grades K-4. The system was designed to operate on an APPLE II microcomputer, videodisc player, and input-output devices. It included three…