Strengthens skills and introduces concepts in multiplication, division, problem solving, fractions and decimals, geometry, number theory, percents, measurement, graphing, and probability.
The editors and contributors of these ten articles focus on the idea that communication includes both what is happening and being said among participants in a classroom and also the politics, values and ideologies that serve as the foundation of the practice. They describe how communication thereby involves register, representation and contexts through media-human interfaces in the classroom and in interpreting mathematics as a text, how communication in mathematics teaching becomes social interaction in cooperative settings and classroom activities, and how communication translates into practice, community, identity and policy.
In this reader, maths teachers in the early years of their careers will find a concise yet comprehensive guide to developments in mathematics teaching in secondary schools and the controversies which currently surround it. After a brief summary of the historical context, a series of short articles provides a range of perspectives on various issues of current debate which will help new teachers in the development of their own teaching styles. These include the impact of computers and calculators in maths teaching, the various arguments about the use of published schemes and for more investigational approaches to the curriculum, and the way in which social and cultural factors can be approached through the teaching of various topics in mathematics. The final section looks at how teachers might continue their professional development through action research in their own classrooms.
This highly illustrated book draws together the wide variety of studies in the learning of mathematics undertaken by the Pattern in Mathematics Research Group at the University of Leeds. Their purpose has been '... to provide structure and support to ... studies of children's perception, conception and use of pattern in learning mathematics'. Set up in 1992, they have embraced work across the whole curriculum, and through all the years of compulsory schooling. As each chapter of this book relates to a different study that was undertaken, the reader can dip in and select relevant material. At the same time, the editor has ensured continuity and progression, allowing the book to be approached as a whole: the early chapters are concerned with very young children; subsequent chapters deal with the primary and middle age ranges, and later ones relate to secondary school work. With individual chapters relating to number, algebra, shape, graphic relations and probability, this new volume provides guidance for teachers of pupils of all age groups. Patterns in mathematics are of immense importance; this book relates pattern to the teaching of mathematics through all years of school. Practical and original, it is closely tied to the National Curriculum. It is a source of new ideas for mathematic teachers at all levels.