Too often, high school algebra students encounter topics in a discrete, disconnected fashion. In the authors' first years of teaching, they found students to be adept at solving problems they were currently studying; for instance, they could solve quadratics during a quadratics unit. Too often, however, students struggled with that same content…

The inquiry-based approach to learning has gained popularity in recent times. Those who promote this approach maintain that mathematical investigation should be used to engage students. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) recommends that problem solving be the center of mathematics teaching in promoting student learning through…