This article discusses an activity designed to encourage writing to learn in mathematics. There were three stages of data collection. An assessment, requiring basic algebra only, was completed by 118 undergraduates from statistics and calculus courses. Students were given summaries of all participant responses, along with the correct answers.…

The word laser is an acronym. It stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Lasers, invented in 1958, are used to cut and fuse materials, accurately survey long distances, communicate across fiber-optic phone lines, produce 3D pictures, make special effects, help navigation, and read bar codes for cash registers. A laser…

In this article, we discuss a collection of active learning activities derived from classic psychology studies that illustrate the appropriate use of descriptive and inferential statistics. (Contains 2 tables.)

Deaf Children usually achieve lower scores on numerical tasks than normally hearing peers. Explanations for mathematical disabilities in hearing children are based on quantity representation deficits (Geary, 1994) or on deficits in accessing these representations (Rousselle & Noël, 2008). The present study aimed to verify, by means of symbolic…

In this article, the authors aim to identify the causal effect of the use of graded problem sets on academic performance of Spanish students. The identification strategy relies on an experiment in which the authors exploit variation arising from observing the performance of nearly 300 students taking the same class during the same semester and…

In providing a continued focus on tasks and activities that help to illustrate key ideas embedded in the new Australian Curriculum, this issue the authors focus, on Geometry in the Measurement and Geometry strand with strong links for an integrated focus on the Statistics and Probability strand. The small unit of work on the sorting and…

Using a design-based research approach, we developed a data-rich problem (DRP) set to improve student understanding of cellular respiration at the ecosystem level. The problem tasks engage students in data analysis to develop biological explanations. Several of the tasks and their implementation are described. Quantitative results suggest that…

The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend a previous study by Burns ("Education and Treatment of Children" 28: 237-249, 2005) examining the effectiveness of incremental rehearsal on computation performance. A multiple-probe design across multiplication problem sets was employed for one participant to examine digits correct per minute…

In looking at successful inquiry activities, patterns in pedagogical approach emerge (Meyer et al. 2011). This article discusses one such approach--the design challenge. A design challenge can be defined as an activity in which students are given an explicit task to create a product that meets a defined goal. However, simply asking students to…

In Japan, only a few public libraries provide e-mail reference services. To help public libraries start e-mail reference services, the authors investigated reference questions received by libraries via e-mail and traditional face-to-face services. The authors found that research questions are more frequently observed among e-mail questions and…

This paper justifies the need for, and offers some suggestions on, the selection and implementation of mathematical problems known as dynamic solution exercises (DSEs). The intent of this article is to help provide insight into how mathematics teachers can go about making "vertical articulation" a cooperative and tangible part of the…

The great gorilla jump is an activity designed to allow calculus students to construct an understanding of the structure of the Riemann sum and definite integral. The activity uses the ideas of position, velocity, and time to allow students to explore familiar ideas in a new way. Our research has shown that introducing the definite integral as…

Practical project work based on eBay selling prices is described. It is suitable for secondary school students of a wide range of statistical expertise and it may be used to introduce a statistical package. (Contains 4 figures and 5 tables.)

Could problem solving be the object of teaching in early education? Could appropriate teaching interventions develop to scaffold children's efforts to solve problems? These were the central questions of this article. The sample consisted of 18 children attending public pre-school in Cyprus. The problem they were asked to solve was to find all…

This article presents a problem set which includes a selection of probability problems. Probability theory started essentially as an empirical science and developed on the mathematical side later. The problems featured in this article demonstrate diversity of ideas and different concepts of probability, in particular, they refer to Laplace and…