Argues that the way in which students solve a particular problem can be analyzed to gain insight into how students think about the mathematics involved. Discusses the use of knowledge gained from listening to student conversations about their strategies to orchestrate classroom discussions. (ASK)

Integrating multicultural activities into mathematics instruction at all grade levels helps to foster appropriate and desirable attitudes about mathematics and its role in our culture. Multicultural investigations in mathematics reveal that many practices common to today's classrooms (such as reasonable guessing) served as the basis for solving…

Presents an activity carried out by aboriginal students that addresses solving a real-life problem that could be linked to number sequence, graph theory, and combinations. Contains 14 references. (ASK)

Presents an overview of how a number of cognitive factors are involved in solving quantitative problems by secondary-school students categorized as skilled and less-skilled. Gives illustrations for the solving of basic and complex composite problems in chemistry. Suggests directions for enhancing instruction in problem solving based in this…

Studies two intact classes of 30 undergraduate students enrolled in a mathematics course; however, one group received relaxation training during an initial class meeting and during the first 5-7 minutes of each subsequent class. The group which received the relaxation training had significantly lower mathematics anxiety and significantly higher…

Discusses the importance of having students pose their own questions and write problems. Proposes a subject related to the heart, blood, and the life-giving potential of blood. Provides related internet sites from which teachers can get information. (ASK)

Three responses from teachers to a problem originally presented in the January-February 1996 issue are shared. The problem concerns sharing a fraction of a meal's price between six diners. Each response reflects a different approach to the problem and to using the problem with a class of students. (AIM)

Develops a diagnostic framework that supports teaching and learning in situations that are suitable for students having difficulty in addressing basic problems. Uses data collected from 47 students in a senior mathematics course. Contains 63 references. (Author/ASK)

Presents a method to make precalculus college freshmen accountable to the class for doing at least some of their assigned homework problems by making each student an expert on one or more of the assignments. (ASK)

Introduces The Square Thing, a lesson that engages and invites student development of problem solving and reasoning skills, understanding through connections within the content, and mathematics voice. Describes components for successful pedagogy and benefits for students experiencing this and similar mathematics pedagogies. (Author/MM)

Outlines some directions taken in the United States for mathematics instruction and offers insights for mathematics teaching from research with young children. (ASK)

Having used the DfES "Problem Solving" pack in a variety of school and centre-based applications, the author taught some of the lessons to classes of children and also observed lessons from the pack being taught to classes from Y1 to Y6. The lessons are part of a series of materials from the Primary National Strategy designed to help…

An event based on "find the rule" problems has been part of the University of Canberra Maths Day since 1985. In this paper, the authors describe the Swiss event, its context, its aims, its logistics, and gives examples of problems used in past events. The type of problems used, how they are used in an event at the maths day, and how the…

The three studies presented here contrasted the problem-solving outcomes of university students when a break was provided or not provided during a problem-solving session. In addition, two studies explored the effect of providing hints (priming) and the placement of hints during the problem-solving session. First, the ability to solve a previously…

As with natural numbers, a greatest common divisor of two Gaussian (complex) integers "a" and "b" is a Gaussian integer "d" that is a common divisor of both "a" and "b". This article explores an algorithm for such gcds that is easy to do by hand.