The main purpose of this research is to examine the informal strategies of fifth and sixth grade students while solving inverse proportional word problems. Multiple case study was used in this study. The research was carried out in a public middle school from a southern city of Türkiye. The participants of the research consist of three fifth and…

Every educator knows the sinking feeling of a lesson gone wrong. As teachers look around the room and realize that many of their students are just not getting it, they often feel like failures. However, the struggle students experience as they persevere through high-quality challenging tasks is not a sign of failure, but rather a key aspect of…

When teaching the multiplicative domain in New Zealand primary schools, teachers tend to spend a greater proportion of time on the meaning and processes of multiplication, to the detriment of a specific focus on understanding the concept of division. When division is taught, it tends to be by reversing the context and turning the division…

This article features a fifth grade mathematics exploration planned to facilitate students' productive struggle. The exploration was a catalyst for a team of educators to unpack the teacher's experience when facilitating students' productive struggle. The team called this "teacher productive struggle" and shares about the construct…

What comes to mind when one thinks about building? One may envision constructions with blocks or engineering activities. Yet, constructing and building a number system requires the same sort of imagination, creativity, and perseverance as building a block city or engaging in engineering design. We know that children invent their own notation for…

The Great Mini-Golf Project requires students to use a ruler to identify measurements to the quarter-inch, with careful precision and accuracy, which supported the Standards for Mathematical Practice 5 and 6: using appropriate tools to solve mathematical problems with precision (NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010). This project also supported Standard…

This single-subject design study examines the effectiveness of a Tier 3 math intervention designed to address the academic challenges of three fifth-grade students not meeting minimum proficiency standards in long division. Using the self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) model, the intervention targeted procedural fluency and conceptual…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the problem-solving techniques that students in a fifth-grade classroom applied while solving mathematical word problems. Fifth-grade students in a private school with Ministry of Education curricula in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, were given a set of 15-word problems to solve with detailed justifications. The…

Choosing the right strategy is an important condition to successfully solve math problems. Research studies often present individual types of strategies more or less separately. This study aims to determine student solutions of selected word problems in the whole context of the solution process. In this context, such nonstandard word problems…

This qualitative semi-structured interview study investigated how the opportunity to learn with productive struggle emerges in a teacher's beliefs, anticipation, planning, teaching, and response to struggle in learning mathematics. In this study, the experiences of student struggle in the teaching and learning of fractions was investigated through…

Geometry is one of the basic areas of school mathematics education, and it is important for elementary students. However, students with mathematics learning disabilities (MLD) struggle with geometry learning. Research has demonstrated that concrete-representational-abstract (CRA) teaching is an effective practice for students with learning…

This essay extends beyond the characteristics and discourse of word problems to, more generally, school mathematical problem-solving and the implications entailed by a predominant paper-and-pencil mode of learning and instruction since the modern era of education. Contrasting what I call "one-handed" (with paper-and-pencil) with…

Productive struggle is an essential part of mathematics instruction that promotes learning with deep understanding. A video scenario is used to provide a glimpse of productive struggle in action and to showcase its characteristics for both students and teachers. Suggestions for supporting productive struggle are provided.

Gifted students' often go unchallenged in the classroom, and this lack of tailored instruction can lead to decreased motivation, which, in turn, influences underachievement, which is a significant concern since these children, theoretically, should be our highest achievers. This 4-week (i.e., eight instructional days) semi-randomized,…

Mathematics assessments should allow all students opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge and skills as problem solvers. Looking at textbook word problems, the authors share a process for revising them using Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Outlined in detail here are problems for kindergarten, grades 5 and 7, and high school (algebra).