In this article, James presents the Extended Hundreds Chart, a task he used with Year 6 students to explore their thinking about and representations of negative numbers.

A Concept-Based Curriculum is designed to help students uncover important, transferable understandings about what it means to be a capable reader, writer, speaker, viewer, listener, and thinker. But, too often, a well-designed, conceptual curriculum does not translate into conceptual teaching. "Concept Based Literacy Lessons" helps…

In this article, the authors introduce ways to use disciplinary literacy (DL) instructional strategies to foster civic engagement and reasoning for middle-grade multilingual students. Four phases of DL strategies--"framing," "reading," "discussion," and "writing"--are illustrated with examples from an…

This article explores facilitating meaningful mathematics discourse, one of the research-based practices described in "Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for All." Two tools that can support teachers in strengthening their classroom discourse are discussed in this, another installment in the series.

Students learning math are expected to do more than just solve problems; they must also be able to demonstrate their thinking and share their ideas, both orally and in writing. As many classroom teachers have discovered, these can be challenging tasks for students. The good news is, mathematical communication can be taught and mastered. In…

Getting students to think deeply about mathematical concepts is not an easy job, which is why we often use problem-solving tasks to engage students in higher-level mathematical thinking. Mathematical modeling, one of the mathematical practices found in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), is a type of problem solving that can…

Tasks to Advance the Learning of Mathematics (TALMs) were developed to stimulate grades 5-8 students' curiosity about complex mathematical relationships, inspire them to reason abstractly and quantitatively, encourage them to consider and create alternative solution approaches, develop their skills to persuade others about the viability of one…

Curriculum top study (CTS) action research is a specific type of inquiry that combines curriculum topic study (Keeley 2005) with an examination of students' thinking using formative assessment probes (Keeley, Eberle, and Farrin 2005; Keeley, Eberle, and Tugel 2007; Keeley, Eberle, and Dorsey 2008; Keeley and Tugel 2009) and a variety of…

Taking children out of the classroom to learn in a totally different environment can be very rewarding for both the children and the teacher. Part of the excitement is the unfamiliarity of the place, which has its positive sides but can lead to a lack of focus. As part of the Darwin 200 celebrations in 2009, the Charles Darwin Trust and…

In this paper, the development of sixth grade students' critical thinking skills in science courses is discussed relatively to the contribution of the integration of aspects of History of Science into instruction. Towards this direction a project on electromagnetism was designed and implemented aiming to engage primary school students in a…

This article tells the story of one student who chooses her personal interest in pigeons and their lifestyle to demonstrate her understanding of measurement concepts. The student's work is used to consider the possibilities for assessment afforded by tasks designed within reform-based curricula. Anita (pseudonym) was a Grade 6 student who was part…

Using an approach based on a Harvard study that found "when the whole body is involved, the number of brain cells brought to the learning activity doubles," the author offers over one hundred kinesthetic activities for classroom use. Activities are organized by content area, include directions for number of players, objective, and…

Addresses the difficulties for upper elementary students in shifting from reading to learn to reading for content. Suggests that integrating reading instruction into social studies lessons will help students improve in confidence and responsibility for learning. Includes detailed plans for two lessons and the strategies to be used. (DK)

Compared with standard arithmetic word problems demanding only the direct use of number operations and computations, realistic problems are harder to solve because children need to incorporate "real-world" knowledge into their solutions. Using the realistic word problem testing materials developed by Verschaffel, De Corte, and Lasure…

Presents examples of students' work to illustrate the typical approaches used at sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade levels and four common threads that are consistent with student development as observed in a Connected Mathematics Project class. (ASK)