This hands-on project uses a paper helicopter to teach students how to distinguish between common and special causes of variability when developing and using statistical process control charts. It allows the student to experience a process that is out-of-control due to imprecise or incomplete product design specifications and to discover how the…

"Classroom Discussions: Seeing Math Discourse in Action, Grades K-6" provides preservice and inservice instructors, coaches and facilitators with real, classroom-based video examples that illustrate the principles and practices covered in the authors' best-selling book, "Classroom Discussions: Using Math Talk to Help Students Learn, Grade K-6,…

Background: The Mathematics Department at Saddleback College created a 3-units intermediate algebra course as an alternative to the traditional 5-units intermediate algebra course. Forty percent of the material in the traditional course was composed of review topics from beginning algebra. The 3-units course did not contain that rehash of…

"The Zeroing in on Number and Operations" series, which aligns with the Common Core State Standards and the NCTM Standards on Focal Points, features easy-to-use tools for teaching key concepts in number and operations and for addressing common misconceptions. Sharing the insights they've gained through decades of mathematics teaching and research,…

This study aims to determine the influence of teaching Fibonacci numbers and golden ratio through history of mathematics on student achievement and the opinions of students regarding this issue. This study was carried out by case study method with 30 students who attended the 8th grade of an elementary school in Erzincan in spring term of…

Having decided to spend some time looking at one's understanding of numbers, the author was inspired by "Alex's Adventures in Numberland," by Alex Bellos to look at one's innate appreciation of number. Bellos quotes research studies suggesting that an individual's natural appreciation of numbers is more likely to be exponential rather…

Most children enjoy maths in the early primary stage, but as schooling continues this decreases. Learning without understanding leads to lack of confidence and frustration. Children need, not to "do" maths, but to be mathematicians; to be able to describe their world in mathematical language; to generate ideas and prove, or disprove them, by…

Like many mathematics teachers, the authors often find that students who struggle with a difficult concept may be assisted by the use of a well-chosen graph or other visual representation. While one should not rely solely on such tools, they can suggest possible theorems which then might be proved with the proper rigor. Even when a picture…

Proficiency with fractions serves as a foundation for later mathematics and is critical for learning algebra, which plays a role in college success and lifetime earnings. Yet children often struggle to learn fractions. Educators have argued that a conceptual understanding of fractions involves learning that a fraction represents a magnitude…

This study aims at exploring processes of flexibility and coordination among acts of visualization and analysis in students' attempt to reach a general formula for a three-dimensional pattern generalizing task. The investigation draws on a case-study analysis of two 15-year-old girls working together on a task in which they are asked to calculate…

This study addresses the measures chosen by students when selecting or constructing indices to properties of distributions of data. A series of individual teaching experiments were conducted to provide insight into the development of five 4th to 8th grade students' conceptualizations of distribution over the course of 8 weeks of instruction.…

This article describes a hands-on mathematics activity wherein students peel oranges to explore the surface area and volume of a sphere. This activity encourages students to make conjectures and hold mathematical discussions with both their peers and their teacher. Moreover, students develop formulas for the surface area and volume of a sphere…

The current study investigated how young learners' experiences with arithmetic equations can lead to learning of an arithmetic principle. The focus was elementary school children's acquisition of the Relation to Operands principle for subtraction (i.e., for natural numbers, the difference must be less than the minuend). In Experiment 1, children…

This article describes a modification of the popular TV game show, "Survivor," as conducted in an undergraduate first semester mathematics precalculus course. The objective of this game is a group-based competitive drill and practice activity to help students prepare and review for the fundamental concepts exam. The results of this activity…

While the study of geometry in some shape or form has existed for many millennia, it is within the past twenty years that a shift has occurred in how geometry may be learned through computer-based interactive geometric software. Software programs like The Geometer's Sketchpad[TM], Cabri[TM], and GeoGebra[TM] allow users to construct interactive…