Describes ways in which general mathematics instruction for students with learning disabilities can focus on math skills needed in daily life in the home, community, and on the job. A table charts the math skills needed for specific life demands. Also addresses life-skills math in the context of reform and curricular considerations. (DB)

Presents ways of using fanciful stories to engage students in mathematical problem solving. (KHR)

Describes experiences and several strategies for developing discourse in the classroom through problem solving and context. (KHR)

Presents a solution of the three-sailors-and-the-bananas problem and attempts a generalization. Introduces an interesting way of looking at the mathematics with an idea drawn from discrete dynamical systems. (KHR)

Describes a three-step process--exploring, inventing, and discovering--that helps students derive concepts actively from problem solving. (YDS)

Describes how to evaluate trade books (i.e., books other than textbooks) that are oriented towards teaching mathematics. (Contains 22 references.) (Author)

Presents action research in the classroom that involves a semantic feature analysis task to help students develop reasoning skills. (YDS)

Illustrates the varied mathematical reasoning involved when a geometric construction problem is solved with three different manipulative tools. (Author/NB)

Develops a week-long, problem-based mathematics curriculum focusing on proportions and explains instructional and assessment strategies. (YDS)

Helps students develop new insights into mathematical relationships through alternative representations. Examines patterns, symbolic, and functions approaches. (Contains 11 references.) (YDS)

Describes the idea of teaching as active learning and defines direction in mathematics teaching as action and perception. Presents an example of a mathematics classroom activity in which students are centered. (KHR)

Discusses anchored instruction, a teaching technique using videodisc-based problem-solving environments, and describes two research projects involving anchored instruction. Argues that anchored instruction provides a way to recreate and improve upon some of the advantages of situated cognition. (FMW)

Describes a freshman composition course which employs problem-solving exercises as a writing improvement technique. Notes that sharing ideas while solving problems builds new writers' openness and trust, whereas thinking aloud prepares students to benefit from other writers' thinking protocol methods. Suggests that brainstorming can help students…

This review shows that mentally retarded children can produce problem-solving strategies if they comprehend the task requirements, share the experimenter's goal, and construct an optimal problem-solving representation. Instruction with multiple exemplars of a task can induce generalized strategy use, and nonvolitional mechanisms play a role in use…

Results are reported from a study involving 141 elementary students which investigated the relationship between students' use of cognitive strategies during social studies critical thinking tasks and their perceptions of classroom instruction. (IAH)