"Mathematics Teaching On Target" is a guidebook for improving mathematics teaching, based on the Teaching for Robust Understanding (TRU) Framework and its five dimensions -- The Mathematics, Cognitive Demand, Equitable Access, Agency, Ownership, and Identity, and Formative Assessment. You'll be guided to refine your classroom activities…

Much has been written about the importance of developing students' civic online reasoning--their ability to effectively search for and evaluate social and political information on the internet. Studies show that students are easily duped by a website's top-level domain name, professional appearance, or About page content, and that they neglect to…

We share ideas for preparing for and enacting high-cognitive demand tasks in ways that support students in articulating and justifying their ideas. We offer strategies for developing and posing several types of purposeful questions: (1) eliciting thinking, (2) generating ideas, (3) clarifying explanations, and (4) justifying claims.

This article introduces an approach that middle-school teachers can follow to help their students carry out linguistic-based literary analyses. As an example, it draws on Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) to show how J.K. Rowling used language to characterize Hermione as an intelligent female in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."…

Inquiry is an approach that promotes engagement, motivation and learning, and which involves use of cognitive knowledge, bodily experience and communicative skills. Usually the inquiry method with skills like observations, planning, investigations, experimenting and drawing conclusions is related to natural sciences, but this paper describes an…

The reading framework for the 2017 NAEP describes the types of texts and questions that should be included in the assessment, as well as how the questions should be designed and scored. The assessment measures students' reading comprehension and ability to apply vocabulary knowledge by having them read passages in English and answer questions…

This unique volume surveys recent research on spatial visualization in mathematics in the fields of cognitive psychology and mathematics education. The general topic of spatial skill and mathematics has a long research tradition, but has been gaining attention in recent years, although much of this research happens in disconnected subfields. This…

How can a simple dot--the decimal point--be the source of such frustration for students and teachers? As the author worked through her own frustrations, she found that her students seemed to fall into groups in terms of misconceptions that they revealed when talking about and working with decimals. When asking students to illustrate their thinking…

In this article, the authors present a tool, the Cognitive Rigor Matrix (CRM; Hess et al. 2009), as a means to analyze and reflect on the type of questions posed by mathematics teachers. This tool is intended to promote and develop higher-order thinking and inquiry through the use of purposeful questions and mathematical tasks. The authors…

Parents in the United States expect their students to have homework; and students, especially in middle school and high school, expect daily homework assignments from their teachers. However, it is difficult to create effective homework assignments. Despite the challenges involved, the authors believe that homework "can" be an important…

Teachers across all grade levels agree that problem solving and reasoning are areas of weakness in students. Assessments among U.S. students indicate that these weaknesses persist (NCTM 2014) in spite of repeated calls that date back more than thirty years for increased problem solving, reasoning, and sense making in our schools. The NCTM is…

The activity described here uses the creative natures of visual art and music to enhance students' potential for creativity while increasing their understanding of the science associated with force and motion. Students design, test, and redesign a sailboat vehicle; collect data; make interpretations; and then defend their design. Music is used to…

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are neurological disorders that affect communication, behavior, and social skills (Humphrey 2008). According to the Centers for Disease Control, an average of 1 in every 110 children in the United States is affected by an autism spectrum disorder, and boys are three times more likely than girls to be diagnosed.…

Can middle-grades students determine which of two rectangular prisms has a larger volume? Can they do so without using a formula? Geometry, and particularly the concept of volume, is important in many subjects, such as physics and chemistry. Students greatly enhance their mathematics knowledge when they make generalizations and construct arguments…

This comprehensive, reader-friendly text demonstrates how personal connections can be incorporated into social studies education while meeting standards of the National Council for the Social Studies. Praised for its wealth of strategies that go beyond social studies content teaching--including classroom strategies, pedagogical techniques,…