Many general and special education teachers across the U.S. teach word problems by defining problems as a single operation (e.g., "Today, we're working on subtraction word problems") and linking key words (e.g., more, altogether, share, twice) to specific operations (e.g., share means to divide). Unfortunately, teaching students to…

This research study focused on how technology-based tools have changed the 21st century education arena in elementary school mathematics classes. The research highlighted the inner city schools where many students in the class are achieving below state standards set for third grade level. The research question asked to what extent do students have…

This paper explores what we can learn from research that early cognitive processes support the development of children's mathematics skills. The role of two cognitive processes in working memory in the development of early mathematics was investigated: executive functions (EF) and visual-spatial (VS) ability. Children's mathematical skills were…

This article considers the place of proof, as a mathematical process, in the primary classroom. It describes the struggle the author, a primary school educator, went through with defining what proof is, what the educational goals of proof are, how these educational goals feature implicitly in the primary classroom, and what pedagogical…

As a parent, the author stepped into his child's class on a Friday morning to a room buzzing with activity. Parents walked around the room, coffee and bagel in hand, reading stories that their child (and others) had drafted, revised, written, and illustrated. Students eagerly shared their stories and drawings, cherishing the comments and praise…

The purpose of this study has been to determine the views of elementary mathematics teachers on the applicability of modeling in mathematics courses. A case study was conducted with 17 elementary mathematics teachers working in various provinces in Turkey. An interview form consisting of open-ended questions was designed for the purpose of…

This article reports on elementary students' understanding of time in the context of common classroom manipulatives and notational systems. Students in Grades 2 (n = 72) and 4 (n = 72) participated in problem-solving interviews involving different clocks. Quantitative results revealed that students' performances were significantly different as a…

Students often struggle to interpret graphs correctly, despite emphasis on graphic literacy in U.S. education standards documents. The purpose of this study was to describe challenges sixth graders with varying levels of science and mathematics achievement encounter when transitioning from interpreting graphs having discrete independent variables…

Most students can follow this simple procedure for division of fractions: "Ours is not to reason why, just invert and multiply." But how many really understand what division of fractions means--especially fraction division with respect to the meaning of the remainder. The purpose of this article is to provide an instructional method as a…

The concept of "proof" has attracted considerable research attention over the past decades in part due to its indisputable importance to the discipline of mathematics and to students' learning of mathematics. Yet, the teaching and learning of proof is an instructionally arduous territory, with proof being recognized as a hard-to-teach…

Learning fractions is difficult for children in general and especially difficult for children with mathematics difficulties (MD). Recent research on developmental and individual differences in fraction knowledge of children with MD and typically achieving (TA) children has demonstrated that U.S. children with MD start middle school behind their TA…

A journey into multiplicative thinking by three teachers in a primary school is reported. A description of how the teachers learned to identify gaps in student knowledge is described along with how the teachers assisted students to connect multiplicative ideas in ways that make sense.

In the field of educational effectiveness research, school effects are generally studied in the short term (i.e. during the same phase of schooling). The aim of this study is to investigate long-term primary school effects on students' achievement in mathematics at the end of secondary education. We also investigate which primary school…

"It is essential that we match our methodology with the psychology of the adolescent and as this changes throughout adolescence, so should our approach." Mike Waski provides an understanding of how to approach mathematics at the adolescent level from the perspective of the developmental characteristics of the age. Sharing observations…

The purpose of this correlation study was to identify a possible relationship between elementary teacher background in mathematics as measured by completed college math credit hours, district-provided professional development hours of training in Common Core math standards, and years of teaching experience, and teacher efficacy in math as measured…