The purpose of this qualitative, single-case study was to examine teachers' perceptions of using guided notes to improve the proficiency rate of middle-grade students in mathematics number systems. This study was conducted in one school system in North Carolina where students were failing to meet the state standards for mathematics achievement at…

Using a dog's paw as a basis for numerical representation, sixth grade students explored how to count and regroup using the dog's four digital pads. Teachers can connect these base-4 explorations to the conceptual meaning of place value and regrouping using base-10.

The combined seventh-grade and eighth-grade class began each day with a mathematical reasoning question as a warm-up activity. One day's question was: Is the product of two odd numbers always an odd number? The students took sides on the issue, and the exercise ended in frustration. Reflecting on the frustration caused by this warm-up activity,…

The goal of this study was to investigate understanding of in-service elementary school teachers in Taiwan about number sense, teaching strategies of number sense and the development of number sense of students. Data were gathered through interviews of nine elementary mathematics teachers, regarding their understanding about number sense. The data…

In this article we analyze the relations between academic mathematical knowledge and the mathematical knowledge associated with issues mathematics school teachers face in practice, according to the specialized literature, and restricted to the theme "number systems". We present examples that illustrate some areas of conflict between those forms of…

Whenever teachers of young children get together there will be differences of opinion about how far children should be taught to count. Some will argue that the focus should be on small numbers to 9, building up the notion of what, say, the name 5 means, what it looks like, and how it can be represented. Others argue that with ice blocks retailing…