Merlin C. Wittrock was a friend and colleague who influenced me and many other contemporary mathematics educators on how students learn. In this article I summarize my interactions with Merl beginning in 1965, and how over the following half-century he influenced my thinking on student learning for understanding and, in turn, on how to design…

This chapter covers assessment issues in classrooms and offers a possible assessment program. The purpose is three-fold: (1) to examine ways of documenting students' understanding using a domain-based approach to assessment; (2) to present examples of assessment items related to this approach; and (3) to discuss difficulties that have arisen as…

This chapter examines the scope of the mathematical content educators expect students to understand after they have participated in mathematics courses. It is organized under four headings: (1) Traditional School Mathematics, to clarify what the shift is away from; (2) Mathematics as Human Activity, to portray the direction the shift is toward;…

Examines the growing influence and developments of other country's mathematics education and reform efforts on U.S. efforts at improving mathematics education. Specifically, it discusses those reform efforts and materials currently in use in the United States that were guided by research and reform in the Netherlands. (GR)