U.S. mathematics education has been criticized for being too broad. This article examines ways middle school students use simple problems and situations to foster a deeper understanding of underlying concepts. Presents a sample area and perimeter problem, describes extending the problem using tiles to determine minimum perimeter, and discusses…

Argues that current approaches to computer graphing practices are ill suited to meet the complex needs of real users. Offers an overview of work in two major areas of graphing theory and research: the sociology of science and the educational research of mathematics and scientific students. Suggests what technical communicators can do to improve…

Illustrates the use of auto- and biographical materials as part of a research process concerned with problematic aspects of learning science. Draws on an extended study of graphing among university students and research scientists, and on the autobiography and interview data from one of the authors to point out some of the sources of difficulties…

This article describes an innovative lesson that uses the biography "Barbara McClintock: Alone in her Field" (Heiligman, 1994) to integrate genetics, literature, and mathematics as a context for students to investigate patterns on Indian corn. This two-day lesson requires students to estimate, collect data, identify and describe patterns,…

This article describes three engaging introductions for topics on a Cartesian graph and the distributive property. (Contains 3 figures.)

This article addresses the enhancement of the learning environment by using Java applets in the mathematics classroom. Currently, the first year mathematics program at the United States Military Academy involves one semester of modeling with discrete dynamical systems (DDS). Several faculty members from the Academy have integrated Java applets…

This paper extends and develops theories of mathematical learning to provide a framework for the analysis of classroom video data of students working at a computer in a task aimed at increasing understanding of multiple representations of quadratic functions. Student interactions are coded using novel software tools in the process of analysis, and…

Forty-one students in two third grade classes, including special education students, participated in an action research project conducted jointly by two university supervisors, three teachers, and three student teachers. The "Minute Math" project involved students in predicting and graphing their test scores on a weekly conventional timed test of…

The kinetics experiments on the ligand-C[subscript 60] exchange reactions on (dihapto-[60]fullerene) pentacarbonyl tungsten(0), ([eta][superscript 2]-C[subscript 60])W(CO)[subscript 5], form an educational activity for the inorganic chemistry laboratory that promotes graphical thinking as well as the understanding of kinetics, mechanisms, and the…

This study examines how task characteristics (the number of visual chunks and the amount of planning time) and test-taker characteristics (graph familiarity) influence the perceptual and cognitive processes involved in graph comprehension, the strategies used in describing graphs, and the scores obtained on the graph description task in a…

The Houston Community College (HCC) 2010-2011 Fact Book provides statistical information about the college district. It is important for the reader to be aware that data presented in this publication may differ slightly from statistics found in other district reports. Such variances may result from differences methodology including the source of…

Research has often found little or no significant differences in overall performance for math students using graphing calculators compared to traditional (non-calculator) classes. However, when performance is divided into procedural and conceptual levels, significant differences appear at the conceptual level. This study investigates the relation…

Several studies have shown the difficulties students encounter in making sense of situations involving rate of change. This study concerns how students discover errors and refine their knowledge when working with rate of change. The part of the study reported here concerns the responses of four precalculus students to a task which asked them to…

This resource book for algebra contains games, tricks, and quick activities for the classroom. Categories of activities include puzzlers, patterns, manipulatives, measurement, graphing, and a section that contains reproducible statement and value cards. Twenty one puzzle problems, four pattern activities, and 11 quick activities that engage…

The purpose of this study is to provide data for making decisions on whether to buy or borrow research materials and whether to use fee-based suppliers or interlibrary loan for obtaining photocopied materials. The study is based on 1991 information collected in a survey of 76 U.S. and Canadian research libraries. The cost per transaction is broken…