The hammer-and-nail phenomenon highlights human tendency to approach a problem using a tool with which one is familiar instead of analyzing the problem. Pedagogical suggestions are offered to help students minimize their mathematical impulsivity, cultivate an analytic disposition, and develop conceptual understanding.

This paper examines task design that affords deep changes in mathematical thinking in the context of peer interaction. We describe a study in which 60 low-level high-school students solved a proportional reasoning task, the "blocks" task as individuals and/or in dyadic interaction. We show that we could tailor the design of the task in order to…

Problem-solving approaches to teaching pupils with autism in special schools are analyzed, discussing the structures needed by individual pupils to enable them to function as problem solvers, the value of reflection in enhancing the learning potential of pupils, and ways of increasing pupils' awareness of their own ways of handling learning…

In this paper three different meanings ascribed to reflective teaching are examined. The first, Cruikshank's Reflective Teaching Model, sees reflective teaching as the ability to analyze one's own teaching practices. Schon's "Reflection in Action," on the other hand, argues that the professional practitioner is one who can think while acting and…