Establishing and maintaining key mathematical practices in whole-class discussions, such as justifying claims, representing mathematical objects and making connections between the representations, is crucial to the development of students' mathematical competencies. The aim of this article is to investigate how and why the establishment of key…

Word problems about motion contain various conjugated verb forms. As students and teachers grapple with such word problems, they jointly operationalize diagrams, gestures, and language. Drawing on findings from a 3-year research project examining the social semiotics of classroom interaction, we show how teachers and students use gesture and…

This paper presents a comparative analysis of prospective elementary teachers' mathematical problem solving-related beliefs in Cyprus and England. Twenty-four participants, twelve from a well-regarded university in each country, were interviewed qualitatively at the exit point of their undergraduate teacher education studies. Analyses revealed…

Uses the notion of focusing phenomena to explain how a teacher's actions were connected to her students' interpretations of a linear equation. Conducts interviews and analyzes a high-school classroom that emphasized dependency relationships in real-world situations. Describes how the teacher directed attention away from functional relationships…

Describes an examination of arithmetic problem posing designed to examine the behaviors of 63 prospective elementary school teachers. Findings indicate that the test effectively evaluates arithmetic problem posing. Most subjects were able to pose solvable, complex problems. Performance improved when the task contained specific numerical…

A cognitive/metacognitive framework is presented for analysing applications tasks and responses to these. Conditions facilitating or impeding access to such tasks at the upper secondary level were identified using qualitative data analysis techniques within this framework. Strategies employed in exploiting, or overcoming these conditions were…