The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) asserts that a goal of mathematics education, in Prekindergarten through grade 12, is to develop mathematical power for "all" students, and that educational equity is the nucleus of this goal. Nevertheless, researchers have found that equity for all students in mathematics education has not…

The aim of the study is to develop a web-based mathematics teaching (WBMT) material and to evaluate the effectiveness of the WBMT material for 9th grade students learning the concept of mathematical function. Firstly, a WBMT material was designed and piloted. As a result of this pilot study the site was revised as a final form. The study was…

Research studies have shown that students encounter difficulties in transitioning from arithmetic to algebra. Errors made by high school students were analyzed for patterns and their causes. The origins of errors were: intuitive assumptions, failure to understand the syntax of algebra, analogies with other familiar symbol systems such as the…

This study investigates the effects of Cognitive Tutor Bridge to Algebra (CTBA), a computer-assisted, remedial Algebra I curriculum, on mathematics performance and mathematics attitudes of ninth-grade students (n = 177) including English Learners (n = 78) and Economically Disadvantaged students (n = 93). A total of 95 students participated in CTBA…

At Richardson Independent School District (RISD), 7th and 8th grade students who used TI MathForward achieved higher scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) Mathematics than similar 7th and 8th grade students who used other mathematics programs during previous years. This study found evidence that the strongest application of…

Two strands of research motivate this study. One is the interest in school students' development of understanding of the concept of average, historically part of the mathematics curriculum and prominent in the statistics curriculum introduced in the early 1990s. The other is the belief of some educators that students learn meaningfully when…

Research is starting to show that an inquiry-based approach can positively impact student learning. In this paper, the author propose a model of inquiry-based learning with the support of virtual mentorship. They identify the key players involved, define each of their responsibilities and explain how they work collaboratively to develop…

As a result of frequently hearing students comment that the language used in mathematics is "like hearing a foreign language," the author investigated this perception by studying a ninth-grade mathematics classroom. Using transcriptions of classroom discussions and semistructured interviews with students, her findings suggest that students…

This report is a follow-up to "Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades" (Williams, Kirst, Haertel, et al., 2010). That study specified a comprehensive set of actionable practices that differentiated higher academic achievement among 303 middle grades schools in California. In doing so, the study provided a compelling and coherent account of…

An attempt to implement problem solving as a teacher of ninth grade algebra is described. The problems selected were not general ones, they involved combinations and represented various situations and were more complex which lead to the discovery of Steiner triple systems.

Two-hundred and thirty-one students in 6 Grade 9 classes in 2 secondary schools in Thailand attempted 54 pencil-and-paper tasks related to linear equations and linear inequalities immediately before and after they participated in 13 lessons on those topics. Students' written responses, and transcripts of pre- and postteaching interviews with 18…

This article describes an engaging, data-gathering activity that allows students to explore relationships between latitude and average monthly temperatures of cities in the Western Hemisphere. This data-gathering activity covered interesting and important mathematical ground and engaged students from the start. While students searched for their…

It is widely accepted that mathematical skills are critically important in our technologically sophisticated world. Educators' metacognition directs, plans, monitors, evaluates and reflects their instructional behaviour and this can promote learners' learning with understanding. The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which…

A feasible instructional method for reducing failure in first-year algebra is the double-dose approach pioneered by Douglas MacIver. Two studies conducted in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and in Norfolk, Virginia, reveal the educational benefits of providing second math periods for ninth-grade algebra students. (MLH)

In this article, the author describes a week of "timely" open-ended lessons with a high ability Y9 group of boys. He gives lessons that would give the students some sense of purpose, as they try to generate a mathematical entity to represent something they used regularly. He states that understanding metric time is something his students…