Until recently there had been relatively little integration of programs of research on teaching, learning, curriculum, and assessment. However, in the last few years it has become increasingly apparent that a more unified program of research is needed to acquire an understanding of teaching and learning in schools that will inform curriculum development and assessment. The chapters in this volume represent a first step toward an integration of research paradigms in one clearly specified mathematical domain. Integrating a number of different research perspectives is a complex task, and ways...

This volume focuses on the important mathematical idea of functions which can be dynamically represented with technology in ways that have not been possible previously. The book's editors contend that as a result of recent technological developments and the integrated knowledge available from research on teaching, instruction, students' thinking and assessment, we are faced with an unprecedented opportunity for making dramatic curriculum change.

Why do some children seem to learn mathematics easily and others slave away at it, learning it only with great effort and apparent pain? Why are some people good at algebra but terrible at geometry? How can people who successfully run a business as adults have been failures at math in school? How come some professional mathematicians suffer terribly when trying to balance a checkbook? And why do school children in the United States perform so dismally in international comparisons? These are the kinds of real questions the editors set out to answer, or at least address, in editing this book on...

Using a variety of research methods, this study addresses the need for professional development leaders and policy makers to influence teachers to modify their mathematics instruction so it is closer to the recommendations of the National Council of Teachers in Mathematics.

How we reason with mathematical ideas continues to be a fascinating and challenging research topic. It has become even more so in recent years due to the rapid and diverse developments in the field of cognitive science. Because cognitive science draws upon several disciplines - psychology, philosophy, computer science, linguistics and anthropology - it provides a rich scope for addressing issues that are at the core of mathematical learning. Drawing upon the interdisciplinary nature of cognitive science, this book presents a broadened perspective on mathematics and mathematical reasoning. It...

Research by cognitive psychologists and mathematics educators has often been compartmentalized by departmental boundaries. Word Problems integrates this research to show its relevance to the debate on the reform of mathematics education.
Beginning with the different knowledge structures that represent rule learning and conceptual learning, the discussion proceeds to the application of these ideas to solving word problems. This is followed by chapters on elementary, multistep, and algebra problems, which examine similarities and differences in the cognitive skills required by...

Mathematics Classrooms That Promote Understanding synthesizes the implications of research done by the National Center for Research in Mathematical Sciences on integrating two somewhat diverse bodies of scholarly inquiry: the study of teaching and the study of learning mathematics.

This research was organized around content domains and/or continuing issues of education, such as equity and assessment of learning, and was guided by two common goals--defining the mathematics content of the K-12 curriculum in light of the changing mathematical needs of citizens for the 21st century,...

Synthesizes the implications of research done by the National Center for Research in Mathematical Sciences on integrating two somewhat disparate bodies of scholarly inquiry: the studies of teaching and the study of learning mathematics.

NORTH AMERICAN RIGHTS ONLY: This is a revised edition of Experiencing School Mathematics first published in 1997 by Open University Press, (c) Jo Boaler. This revised edition is for sale in North America only.
The first book to provide direct evidence for the effectiveness of traditional and reform-oriented teaching methods, Experiencing School Mathematics reports on careful and extensive case studies of two schools that taught mathematics in totally different ways. Three hundred students were followed over three years, providing an unusual and important range of data,...

Presents the results of a major NSF-funded study to gather, analyze, and synthesize the research on K-12 student outcomes in standards-based mathematics curriculum projects. Audiences include math ed researchers, policymakers, teachers, etc.