Discusses a course taken at the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana) by undergraduates majoring in elementary education. The course attempts to combine theory and practice, emphasizing teaching methods which stress that learners make use of "mental representations" in assembling a working understanding of various components of their…

Discusses several ways in which the Logo programming language can be used to experiment with and learn about matrices. Describes procedures for developing a Logo tool to establish a matrix representation, as well as others for adding, subtracting, and transposing. (TW)

Discussed are possible reasons behind the inconsistencies in the learning of calculus. Implicated are students' beliefs, mathematical paradigms including concept image and concept definition, language use, and curriculum sequencing. (KR)

This article illustrates that mathematical theory can be incorporated into the process to solve differential equations by a computer algebra system, muMATH. After an introduction to functions of muMATH, several short programs for enhancing the capabilities of the system are discussed. Listed are six references. (YP)

A study of 547 science and mathematics majors graduated from a leading women's college found that cohort, major, number of undergraduate science courses, parental encouragement, and career advice from faculty were key factors associated with persistence in science and mathematics after college. (Author/MSE)

Discussed is the process of translating situations involving changing quantities into mathematical relationships. This process, called dynamical modeling, allows students to learn new mathematics while sharpening their algebraic skills. A description of dynamical systems, problem-solving methods, a graphical analysis, and available classroom…

Describes the collegewide academic program at Maharishi International University that incorporates speaking and writing into the undergraduate curriculum. The impact of the key features of this successful program upon the mathematics curriculum are discussed in detail. (JJK)

This document contains findings of a year-long evaluation of the Mathematics and Education Reform (MER) Forum, a voluntary association targeting the academic mathematics community in four-year colleges and universities. Specifically, the evaluation sought to assess the extent to which MER influenced its members' involvement in…

This study was designed to determine students' abilities and difficulties in articulating the relationship between function and derivative. High-school students were presented 15 problems during two 75-minute interviews in which they were asked to construct functions experimentally in three different contexts: motion, fluids, and number-change. In…

This study evaluated the effectiveness of the curriculum for a remedial mathematics program administered as an audio-tutorial self-paced class at Lake Michigan College. Twelve variables were selected for analysis, including pretest scores, mathematics skills test scores, final grades, time spent, age, gender, and attitude from 247 students…

This study was an initial effort at Brenau College (Georgia) to analyze the relative effectiveness of a self-paced math lab approach to developmental pre-college algebra. Students enrolled in 1988-89 were taught under the lecture method; this applied to students needing both developmental arithmetic and developmental algebra. During the subsequent…

When one encounters a problem that one has no adequate way of representing, a new mental model for the problem may have to be found. When a possible model is found, an important next step is to evaluate the validity of the model. In this document, examples of subjects finding and evaluating mental models used as problem representations are…

This document presents four research papers related to the role of inconsistent ideas in learning mathematics and a discussion paper related to the same issue. The titles of the papers are: (1) "Cognitive Conflict in Procedure Applications" (Merlyn Behr and Guershon Harel); (2) "Inconsistencies in Preservice Elementary Teachers'…

It is a concern of many educators and researchers that females are underrepresented in the field of mathematics and careers that require mathematics. This study begins with a review of the literature that examines the sex-related differences in mathematics. Three major categories involving the relationship between females and mathematics are then…

This document contains the course syllabus and 12 independent practice modules for a college pre-calculus course designed as the second course in a two-semester sequence for students in a Bachelor of Technology program. The course emphasizes applications from technology and verbal problems. Topics include trigonometric functions; identities;…