Argues that mathematics literacy begins at birth and that all that children need to construct mathematics concepts for themselves are a stimulating environment and receptive adults. Provides suggestions for promoting emergent math for children from birth through 4 years, including using rhythm and music, incorporating mathematics concepts into…

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…

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…

This article presents an in-class Monte Carlo demonstration, designed to demonstrate to students the implications of multicollinearity in a multiple regression study. In the demonstration, students already familiar with multiple regression concepts are presented with a scenario in which the "true" relationship between the response and…

Statistical literacy is defined as "the ability to read and interpret data: the ability to use statistics as evidence in arguments. Statistical literacy is a competency: the ability to think critically about statistics" (Schield, p. 2). When a definition of statistical literacy is considered it can be seen that all students can manage a…

This article discusses how children learn to understand the decimal system in very concrete ways, while having fun using beads. When counting the beads, the children learn 5,491 is not simply "five thousand four hundred and ninety-one" but actually 5 thousands, 4 hundreds, 9 tens, and 1 unit. They begin to understand that as they get 10 units,…

The research issue in this study is how to structure collaborative learning so that it improves solving physics problems more than individual learning. Structured collaborative learning has been compared with individual learning environments with Schoenfeld's problem-solving episodes. Students took a pre-test and a post-test and had the…

This paper describes how a target group of seven students in a combined fourth and fifth grade mathematics class used structured representations to solve fraction problems situated within various realistic contexts. Emphasis is given to the ways in which students' thinking about rational number concepts influences and is influenced by the…

The first section of this guide contains detailed instructions on how to stage a Microscopic Explorations Festival and an overview of learning station activities that can be used during such an event. The main section of this guide provides concise instructions for setting up each of the festival stations. For each station there is an overview,…

Vicki Zack, a classroom teacher and researcher, returned to the fifth grade classroom in 1989 after more than a decade of teaching in a university faculty of education in order to teach in the changing ecologies of classrooms (with problem-solving approaches in mathematics and literature-based approaches in reading) and to research from the…

In part 1 of this article Zack and Reid offered two examples of students operating with good-enough understandings in mathematics, and related their understandings to features of good-enough understanding identified by Mackey (I997) in the context of reading. Mackey contends that the ability to read further, on the basis of a very imperfect…

This book provides practical guidance for parents, teachers, and other early years workers who want to give children a good start in mathematical development. Showing how competent children are as mathematicians from an early age, the book offers an overview of young children's mathematical behaviour at home and in early years settings. This book…

This book contains a collection of fraction lessons that support curriculum and instruction. The goals of the lessons are to give all students the chance to: (1) extend their understanding of the place value system to include decimals; (2) learn how decimals relate to fractions; (3) represent, read, and interpret decimal numerals; (4) compare…

This activity, part of the NASA CONNECT Series, is designed to help students in grades 6-8 learn how NASA engineers develop experimental aircraft. It consists of an overview of the program, details of the hands-on activity, a series of blackline master student worksheets, teacher materials, and a guide to further resources. (MM)

Since the advent of reform in mathematics education, writing in mathematics courses has taken on an increasingly important role. This paper discusses what one teacher has done over time to incorporate writing into calculus classes and how the techniques employed have evolved over time. The focus is on journal writing, extended exercises, and…