"Mathematics Teaching On Target" is a guidebook for improving mathematics teaching, based on the Teaching for Robust Understanding (TRU) Framework and its five dimensions -- The Mathematics, Cognitive Demand, Equitable Access, Agency, Ownership, and Identity, and Formative Assessment. You'll be guided to refine your classroom activities…

"What" and "how" young children are thinking are typically expressed and shared at home and school through verbal and written modes of communication. As a visual language framework conceived and developed by David Hyerle, Thinking Maps® offers an additional way for learners to represent their ideas by visually mapping their…

As educators, parents, and citizens, we must settle for nothing less than environments that bring out the best in people, take learning to the next level, allow for great discoveries, and propel both the individual and the group forward into a lifetime of learning. This is something all teachers want and all students deserve. In "Creating…

Since many people tend to use photographs as memory anchors, this author decided she wanted to know whether the process of capturing and manipulating an image taken during a learning activity would act as a memory anchor for children's visual, auditory and kinaesthetic memories linked to their cognitive learning at the time. In plain English,…

It is not common to introduce current astronomy in school lessons. This article presents a set of experiments about gravitational lenses. It is normal to simulate them by means of computers, but it is very simple to simulate similar effects using a drinking glass full of liquid or using only the glass base. These are, of course, cheap and easy…

Teachers are--rightly--exhorted to challenge children so as to help them maximise their abilities, broaden their horizons and increase their achievement. But what exactly are challenging activities? And how can teachers be sure they embed challenge in everyday school life? If teachers understand the principles of challenge they can improve…

Challenges teachers to explore teacher talk and distinguish messages that unwittingly encourage dependence on authority from those that support the growth of academic autonomy through discovering relationships, developing speed and accuracy in skills, and developing understandings that serve problem solving in projects and activities. (MKR)

Describes second graders' responses to finding the sum of the numbers from 1 through 10 after reading the book, Ten Black Dots. Includes student work demonstrating their problem solving. (MKR)

Argues that teaching for poetic thought develops not only poets and lovers of poetry, but also readers, dreamers, and doers. Offers suggestions on how it is done.(FL)

Instruction in estimation is proposed as a natural context to develop and practice important thinking skills. These skills are described and estimation activities are proposed for each. (MNS)

One view of mathematical thinking is described, followed by detailing of the characteristics of a problem-solving program necessary to develop this kind of thinking. (MNS)

The purpose of the book is to provide teachers of psychology access to teaching techniques that epitomize "happy tact and ingenuity." The principle influence that teachers have on student behavior occurs in the classroom since, as noted by Erickson and Strommer, (1991), today's students spend relatively little time studying outside of class. When…

Describes how teachers can incorporate the use of comprehension monitoring activities into the guided reading phase of basal reading instruction. (FL)

The use of drama in the classroom provides concrete opportunities to explore such higher-level thinking abilities as synthesis, evaluation, and divergent thinking. Suggested activities for use with upper elementary and secondary students involve pantomime, verbal improvisation, expressing emotions, and developing characters. (JDD)

The focus is on how reasoning can be developed through the study of two-dimensional shapes, their properties, and the relationships among them. Research on children's understanding of geometric shapes is reviewed and activities to develop analyzing and classifying skills are given, with a bibliography included. (MNS)