This article describes a subset of results from a larger study (Rubel, 2002) that explored middle school and high school students' probabilistic reasoning abilities across a variety of probabilistic contexts and constructs. Students in grades 5, 7, 9, and 11 at an urban, private school for boys (n = 173) completed a Probability Inventory,…

The study investigated the changes in levels of mathematics anxiety among pre-service teachers in six different sections of a mathematics method courses for early childhood/elementary education pre-service teachers. The changes were a function of using Bruner's framework of developing conceptual knowledge before procedural knowledge and using…

Computer software that shows students visual models of mathematical concepts--and lets them manipulate those models by doing math--has a certain intuitive appeal. Now, recent research on SimCalc Mathworlds, one of the pioneering examples of such software, is providing some of the best evidence so far that the approach can lead to gains in student…

Writing is frequently neglected in American schools. Writing-to-learn approaches can develop writing skills and help learners form connections between scientific and mathematical concepts. Teachers often avoid writing in their classes because of a lack of class time and the demands of grading student writing. The Write Now Approach uses the…

This document was created because of the need for new assessment strategies and practices to be developed to enable teachers and others to assess students' performance in a manner that reflects the NCTM's reform vision for school mathematics. Instead of assuming that the purpose of assessment is to rank students on a particular trait, the new…

Researchers have reported that children's writing about mathematical concepts can give teachers valuable insight into students' mathematical understanding. There are, however, factors which place constraints on the adequacy of written products to reveal the quality and degree of children's conceptual understanding. This study examined the…

The paper shows that the study of mathematics can be organized as a complex learning enterprise integrating manipulative-exploratory play into a newer software tool environment--a dynamic geometry, a spreadsheet, and a relation grapher. The discussion reflects work done in a lab setting with preservice and inservice teachers enrolled in…

This curriculum guide, developed by an adult basic education program for disadvantaged women, provides methods for teaching mathematical concepts and operations including whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and percents. The curriculum illustrates methods and activities that bridge the gap between numerals (the symbols of mathematical…

Findings from two studies of fourth grade children learning the concept of mathematical equivalence are presented. The questions studied were: (1) Can knowledge conveyed in gesture but not in speech be tapped by a recognition technique; and (2) Does having implicit knowledge that is expressed in gesture but not in speech have implications for…

Ithaca College, in New York, has developed and tested a projects-based first-year calculus course over the last 3 years which uses the graphs of functions and physical phenomena to illustrate and motivate the major concepts of calculus and to introduce students to mathematical modeling. The course curriculum is designed to: (1) emphasize on the…

This document offers instructional materials for a 60-hour course on basic math operations involving decimals, fractions, and proportions as applied in the workplace. The course, part of a workplace literacy project developed by Mercer County Community College (New Jersey) and its partners, contains the following: course outline; 17 lesson…

This research is part of the London-based Concepts in Secondary Mathematics and Science Project. It is derived from developmental psychology, with particular emphasis on the implications of the results to the teaching of mathematics in secondary schools. A basic premise is that if one first identifies the child's present level of understanding of…

Using science experiments in life science, chemistry, and physics, helps ground students' understanding of abstract algebra concepts in real-world applications. Hands-on activities connect mathematics with science in a way that is accessible to teachers and students alike. Each activity explores a scientific phenomenon, connecting it to algebra…

This activity book was designed especially for the classroom teacher who is constantly on the lookout for unique and interesting ways to challenge the students' learning capacity in the area of elementary mathematics. The material presented here places a strong emphasis on defining the particular skills to be covered in each activity. All the…

Two issues were investigated in this study: (1) how well do children do descriptive statistics (i.e., accuracy); and (2) how do they do it. A total of 31 children in third grade (with no formal instruction in statistics) and 31 children in sixth grade (who had learned how to calculate a mean) compared a set of data from two domains: (1) the…