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)

Discusses ways to encourage students to discuss and explain their problem-solving process, including journals, student-authored story problems, mathematician's chair, cooperative learning, family newsletter, and mathematics communication structures, which add variety to students' communication tasks. (MKR)