Presents an assignment where students write their own word-problems that incorporate parts of the book "The Great Migration: An American Story" by Jacob Lawrence and then illustrate their word-problems in the style of Lawrence. Explains that the book focuses on the Great Migration when African Americans moved to northern U.S. cities.…

Investigated whether stereotype threat would depress college women's math performance. In one test, men outperformed women when solving word problems, though women performed equally when problems were converted into numerical equivalents. In another test, participants solved difficult problems in high or reduced stereotype threat conditions. Women…

A resource vision teacher describes activities to develop skills in solving mathematical word problems by three seventh graders with severe visual impairments. Students kept portfolios of problems they actually experienced in their daily lives. Success was achieved through providing an optimal environment, active involvement, self-assessment, and…

Simple arithmetic word problems are often featured in elementary school education. One type of problem, "compare with unknown reference set," ranks among the most difficult to solve. Differences in item difficulty for compare problems with unknown reference set are observed depending on the direction of the relational statement (more than vs. less…

In two original articles from the inaugural issue of "Topics in Language Disorders", Berlin, Blank, and Rose proposed a model of dialogue complexity on the basis of a continuum of abstractness defined as perceptual-language distance; Carlson, Gruenewald, and Nyberg proposed a triadic model of academic concepts, student language, and…

A three-stage model for algebraic word problem solving is developed in which students' understanding of the intrinsic logical structure of word problems is strengthened by connecting real-life problems and formal mathematics. (Contains 3 figure.)

This paper introduces a study aimed at ascertaining students' beliefs about mathematics and mathematical learning, as well as developing those beliefs and related variables by changing the classroom learning environment. Eighty-six fifth graders were involved, divided in two groups: one in the innovative learning environment (N=46) and the other…

In this paper, we analyze an investigative situation proposed to a class of 5th graders in a primary school. The situation is based on the following task: In a sale with group rates on a sliding scale, the students must find the lowest possible purchase price for a given number of tickets. A study of students' arguments made it possible to…

This article describes the process used in elementary mathematics content courses to engage preservice teachers in problem-solving activities to enhance their understanding and ability to analyze nonroutine problems. Through this process, preservice teachers' competencies and confidence with these problems improve. (Contains 7 figures.)

Despite plenty of practice, many students find interpreting and solving word-problems difficult. How can teachers work with students so that they learn to make appropriate sense (or should it be "inappropriate sense"?) of word-problems? One way to investigate how students make sense of word-problems is to ask them to write some of their own. The…

This article discusses an approach designed for mathematics educators. Maria Montessori intended this knowledge to be shared with other teachers, increasing the Montessori community's understanding of children's thinking. A group of Montessorians has even tried to formalize this process with a program called Teachers' Research Network. Similarly,…

Pupils need to experience a variety of reading activities in mathematics. For all pupils, the mathematics teacher should identify unknown words from their texts and print these words on the chalkboard clearly for learners to see. Phonics should not generally be emphasized in the mathematics curriculum, but brief "teachable moments" may…

This booklet summarizes findings from data on mathematics achievement gathered on the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for grades 4, 8, and 12. Approximately 26,000 4th, 8th, and 12th graders in 1,500 public and private schools participated in the national assessment. Information included in the report are: trends in…

The majority of research investigating gender-related differences in problem-solving ability has focused on the product of word problem solving--the problem solution. This paper reports an investigation of potential gender-related effects on sixth-graders of an explicitly stated problem-solving plan. Two versions of the test were given: the…

This study, involving 65 undergraduates at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta); explores a scheme for representing problem-solving knowledge and predicting transfer as a function of problem-solving subgoals acquired from examples. A subgoal is an unknown entity (numerical or conceptual) that needs to be found in order to achieve a higher…