To further understand student thinking in the context of combinatorial enumeration, we examine student work on a problem involving set partitions. In this context, we note some key features of the multiplication principle that were often not attended to by students. We also share a productive way of thinking that emerged for several students who…

The 43rd meeting of Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group (CMESG) was held at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia (May 31-June 4, 2019). This meeting marked only the third time CMESG/GCEDM (Groupe Canadien d'Étude en Didactique des Mathématiques) had been held in Nova Scotia (1996, 2003), and the first time it had been…

Derivation of the law of radioactive decay is considered without prior knowledge of calculus or the exponential series. Calculus notation and exponential functions are used because ultimately they cannot be avoided, but they are introduced in a simple way and explained as needed. (Contains 10 figures, 1 box, and 1 table.)

Multiplication facts are difficult to teach. Therefore many researchers have put a great deal of effort into finding multiplication strategies. Sherin and Fuson (2005) provided a good survey paper on the multiplication strategies research area. Kolpas (2002), Rendtorff (1908), Dabell (2001), Musser (1966) and Markarian (2009) proposed the finger…

This submission contains the Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Mathematics Education Study Group (CMESG), held at the Université de Moncton in Moncton, New Brunswick. The CMESG is a group of mathematicians and mathematics educators who meet annually to discuss mathematics education issues at all levels of learning. The aims of…

Numerous studies indicate that performance in solving single step multiplicative word problems is influenced by both problem structure and the types of numbers involved in the problem. For example, including numbers less than one often increases the difficulty of a problem. What remains unclear is how problem structure and number type interact in…

Presented is an activity where students determine the multiplication tables of groups of small order. How this can be used to help develop an understanding of the concept of group isomorphism is explained. (KR)

College students were exposed to two pairs of mathematics assignments. Assignment Pair A included a high-effort assignment containing 18 long three-digit ? two-digit (3?2) multiplication problems with all numerals in each problem being equal to or greater than four and a moderate-effort assignment that contained nine long problems and nine…