Suggests that teachers make use of children's literature to stimulate the learning of mathematical concepts. Identifies criteria for selecting children's books for math class, and provides examples of appropriate books and questions teachers might pose to spark children's thinking about math. Cautions teachers to avoid books that are workbooks in…

In order to improve teaching, it is important to understand why teaching looks the way that it now does and how its general form can be explained. One way to address this question is at the classroom level. This approach has been found in the ethnographic work of anthropologists and has been skillfully applied in the recent work of such…

In this article, the author shares a decade's worth of experience in developing an approach to teaching math to upper-elementary and middle school students that simultaneously increases basic skills, improves problem solving, raises test scores, and sparks student interest in math. Sections include: (1) Background Of Supermath; (2) Description Of…

Who says learning always has to be drudgery? Sarah Butzin, the founder of the Institute for School Innovation, proposes "triangulated learning" as a way to give children time to play and develop, even as they pursue high standards. Triangulation is a metaphor for strength. A triangulated learning system taps the power of three to meet…

This article explores some way that technology can be used to promote mathematical thinking and problem solving. Specifically, it focuses on the use of technology for multiple representations. (Contains 8 figures.)

Fostering students' mathematical thinking requires regularly presenting them with challenging problems and involving them in the processes of mathematical inquiry (e.g., representing and solving problems; making, testing, and justifying conjectures). The Inverting a 36 Penny Triangular Array problem (called the Inverting problem, for short) is a…

This article summarizes results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) that show measurement education to be a major weakness in the United States, particularly for minority students. The middle school measurement topics assessed by NAEP and TIMSS include…

The article discusses the ways that less successful mathematics students used graphing software with capabilities similar to a basic graphing calculator to solve algebra problems in context. The study is based on interviewing students who learned algebra for 3 years in an environment where software tools were always present. We found differences…

This article connects three disciplines while exploring how students computed tons of food consumed by both locusts and people. Included with this article are two worksheets "How Much Does a Locust Eat?" and "Can You Eat Those Locusts?". (Contains 3 figures.)

There is a childhood saying about a confused dog who thinks he sees a possum in a tree. The problem is that the possum is actually in a different tree so the dog barks up the wrong tree. American education is constantly playing both dog and possum. Sometimes they are the prey, and sometimes they are just confused about what and where the prey is.…

This article reports on the teaching of a unit of lessons which integrates mathematics with studies of society and the environment. The unit entitled "Population Growth Rates" was taught to a double class of Year 6 students by a team of three teachers. The objectives of the unit were: (1) to provide students with a real-world context in…

The problems many Indian children experience in schools-- low academic achievement, absenteeism, high drop-out rates-- cannot be solved by any one individual. Instead, it requires action by the entire school system and, especially, greater leadership by Indians themselves. Tribes must become partners in the process of school reform and become…

The importance of homework activities for student achievement has been extensively discussed. Research has indicated that, in general, students who spend more time on homework tend to show higher levels of academic achievement. For instance, results from the Third International Mathematics Study (TIMSS) indicated that adolescent students in Japan…

This study investigates the role of basic elements of a learning context namely: the given tasks, the nature of the provided tools, and the pupils' gender in their choice of tools provided by an open problem-solving computer environment. Pupils' choice of tools is discussed through the description of an experiment involving the interaction of (30)…

Each month, "Curriculum Review" offers teachers mutual support, the sharing of ideas, and words of encouragement to help them face challenges in the classroom. The January 2004 issue of "Curriculum Review" contains the following articles: (1) "We Hear from Readers"; (2) "What They're Saying"; (3) "Technology Update"; (4) "Use Parent Nights to…