Studies in Mathematical Thinking and Learning Series – serie

This resource offers a groundbreaking effort to make mathematics education research on ratios and proportions readily accessible and understandable to preservice and in-service teachers of grades 6 to 8. Using extensive annotated samples of student work and based on research gathered in the Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP), A Focus on Ratios and Proportions teaches readers how students develop understanding and fluency involving ratio and proportion concepts.Special features include:A close focus on student work, including 150+ annotated pieces of student work, to help teachers improve their ability to recognize, assess and monitor their students’ errors and misconceptions, as well as their developing conceptual understanding.A focus on the OGAP Ratios and Proportions Progression, based on research conducted with hundreds of teachers and thousands of pieces of student work.Sections on how Common Core State Standards for Math (CCSSM) are supported by math education research.Student work samples and vignettes to illuminate the research, as well as end of chapter Looking Back questions and Instructional Links, which allow teachers to analyze evidence of student thinking and strategies and consider instructional responses.An accompanying eResource, available online, offers an answer key as well as extensive explanation of the Looking Back questions.Like A Focus on Multiplication and Division and A Focus on Fractions, this book is designed to bridge the gap between what math education researchers know and what teachers need to know in order to better understand evidence in student work and make effective instructional decisions.

This resource offers a groundbreaking effort to make mathematics education research on ratios and proportions readily accessible and understandable to preservice and in-service teachers of grades 6 to 8. Using extensive annotated samples of student work and based on research gathered in the Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP), A Focus on Ratios and Proportions teaches readers how students develop understanding and fluency involving ratio and proportion concepts.Special features include:A close focus on student work, including 150+ annotated pieces of student work, to help teachers improve their ability to recognize, assess and monitor their students’ errors and misconceptions, as well as their developing conceptual understanding.A focus on the OGAP Ratios and Proportions Progression, based on research conducted with hundreds of teachers and thousands of pieces of student work.Sections on how Common Core State Standards for Math (CCSSM) are supported by math education research.Student work samples and vignettes to illuminate the research, as well as end of chapter Looking Back questions and Instructional Links, which allow teachers to analyze evidence of student thinking and strategies and consider instructional responses.An accompanying eResource, available online, offers an answer key as well as extensive explanation of the Looking Back questions.Like A Focus on Multiplication and Division and A Focus on Fractions, this book is designed to bridge the gap between what math education researchers know and what teachers need to know in order to better understand evidence in student work and make effective instructional decisions.

The 20th anniversary edition of this groundbreaking and bestselling volume offers powerful examples of the mathematics that can develop the thinking of elementary school children.Studies of teachers in the U.S. often document insufficient subject matter knowledge in mathematics. Yet, these studies give few examples of the knowledge teachers need to support teaching, particularly the kind of teaching demanded by reforms in mathematics education. Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics describes the nature and development of the knowledge that elementary teachers need to become accomplished mathematics teachers, and suggests why such knowledge seems more common in China than in the United States, despite the fact that Chinese teachers have less formal education than their U.S. counterparts. Along with the original studies of U.S. and Chinese teachers’ mathematical understanding, this 20th anniversary edition includes a new preface and a 2013 journal article by Ma, "A Critique of the Structure of U.S. Elementary School Mathematics" that describe differences in U.S. and Chinese elementary mathematics. These are augmented by a new series editor’s introduction and two key journal articles that frame and contextualize this seminal work.

The 20th anniversary edition of this groundbreaking and bestselling volume offers powerful examples of the mathematics that can develop the thinking of elementary school children.Studies of teachers in the U.S. often document insufficient subject matter knowledge in mathematics. Yet, these studies give few examples of the knowledge teachers need to support teaching, particularly the kind of teaching demanded by reforms in mathematics education. Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics describes the nature and development of the knowledge that elementary teachers need to become accomplished mathematics teachers, and suggests why such knowledge seems more common in China than in the United States, despite the fact that Chinese teachers have less formal education than their U.S. counterparts. Along with the original studies of U.S. and Chinese teachers’ mathematical understanding, this 20th anniversary edition includes a new preface and a 2013 journal article by Ma, "A Critique of the Structure of U.S. Elementary School Mathematics" that describe differences in U.S. and Chinese elementary mathematics. These are augmented by a new series editor’s introduction and two key journal articles that frame and contextualize this seminal work.

This innovative text offers a unique approach to making mathematics education research on addition, subtraction, and number concepts readily accessible and understandable to pre-service and in-service teachers of grades K–3.Revealing students’ thought processes with extensive annotated samples of student work and vignettes characteristic of teachers’ experiences, this book provides educators with the knowledge and tools needed to modify their lessons and improve student learning of additive reasoning in the primary grades. Based on research gathered in the Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP), this engaging, easy-to-use resource features practical resources such as: A close focus on student work, including 150+ annotated pieces of student work, to help teachers improve their ability to recognize, assess, and monitor their students’ errors and misconceptions, as well as their developing conceptual understanding; A focus on the OGAP Addition, Subtraction, and Base Ten Number Progressions, based on research conducted with hundreds of teachers and thousands of pieces of student work; In-chapter sections on how Common Core State Standards for Math (CCSSM) are supported by math education research; End-of-chapter questions to allow teachers to analyze student thinking and consider instructional strategies for their own students; Instructional links to help teachers relate concepts from each chapter to their own instructional materials and programs; An accompanying eResource, available online, offers an answer key to Looking Back questions, as well as a copy of the OGAP Additive Framework and the OGAP Number Line Continuum. A Focus on Addition and Subtraction marks the fourth installment of the popular A Focus on… collection, designed to aid the professional development of pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers. Following from previous volumes on ratios and proportions, multiplication and division, and fractions, this newest addition is designed to bridge the gap between what math education researchers know and what teachers need to know in order to better understand evidence in student work and make effective instructional decisions.

This innovative text offers a unique approach to making mathematics education research on addition, subtraction, and number concepts readily accessible and understandable to pre-service and in-service teachers of grades K–3.Revealing students’ thought processes with extensive annotated samples of student work and vignettes characteristic of teachers’ experiences, this book provides educators with the knowledge and tools needed to modify their lessons and improve student learning of additive reasoning in the primary grades. Based on research gathered in the Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP), this engaging, easy-to-use resource features practical resources such as: A close focus on student work, including 150+ annotated pieces of student work, to help teachers improve their ability to recognize, assess, and monitor their students’ errors and misconceptions, as well as their developing conceptual understanding; A focus on the OGAP Addition, Subtraction, and Base Ten Number Progressions, based on research conducted with hundreds of teachers and thousands of pieces of student work; In-chapter sections on how Common Core State Standards for Math (CCSSM) are supported by math education research; End-of-chapter questions to allow teachers to analyze student thinking and consider instructional strategies for their own students; Instructional links to help teachers relate concepts from each chapter to their own instructional materials and programs; An accompanying eResource, available online, offers an answer key to Looking Back questions, as well as a copy of the OGAP Additive Framework and the OGAP Number Line Continuum. A Focus on Addition and Subtraction marks the fourth installment of the popular A Focus on… collection, designed to aid the professional development of pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers. Following from previous volumes on ratios and proportions, multiplication and division, and fractions, this newest addition is designed to bridge the gap between what math education researchers know and what teachers need to know in order to better understand evidence in student work and make effective instructional decisions.

This engaging book offers an in-depth introduction to teaching mathematics through problem-solving, providing lessons and techniques that can be used in classrooms for both primary and lower secondary grades. Based on the innovative and successful Japanese approaches of Teaching Through Problem-solving (TTP) and Collaborative Lesson Research (CLR), renowned mathematics education scholar Akihiko Takahashi demonstrates how these teaching methods can be successfully adapted in schools outside of Japan. TTP encourages students to try and solve a problem independently, rather than relying on the format of lectures and walkthroughs provided in classrooms across the world. Teaching Mathematics Through Problem-Solving gives educators the tools to restructure their lesson and curriculum design to make creative and adaptive problem-solving the main way students learn new procedures. Takahashi showcases TTP lessons for elementary and secondary classrooms, showing how teachers can create their own TTP lessons and units using techniques adapted from Japanese educators through CLR. Examples are discussed in relation to the Common Core State Standards, though the methods and lessons offered can be used in any country.Teaching Mathematics Through Problem-Solving offers an innovative new approach to teaching mathematics written by a leading expert in Japanese mathematics education, suitable for pre-service and in-service primary and secondary math educators.

This engaging book offers an in-depth introduction to teaching mathematics through problem-solving, providing lessons and techniques that can be used in classrooms for both primary and lower secondary grades. Based on the innovative and successful Japanese approaches of Teaching Through Problem-solving (TTP) and Collaborative Lesson Research (CLR), renowned mathematics education scholar Akihiko Takahashi demonstrates how these teaching methods can be successfully adapted in schools outside of Japan. TTP encourages students to try and solve a problem independently, rather than relying on the format of lectures and walkthroughs provided in classrooms across the world. Teaching Mathematics Through Problem-Solving gives educators the tools to restructure their lesson and curriculum design to make creative and adaptive problem-solving the main way students learn new procedures. Takahashi showcases TTP lessons for elementary and secondary classrooms, showing how teachers can create their own TTP lessons and units using techniques adapted from Japanese educators through CLR. Examples are discussed in relation to the Common Core State Standards, though the methods and lessons offered can be used in any country.Teaching Mathematics Through Problem-Solving offers an innovative new approach to teaching mathematics written by a leading expert in Japanese mathematics education, suitable for pre-service and in-service primary and secondary math educators.

Summarizing data derived from a four-year combined longitudinal/ cross-sectional comparative study of the implementation of one standards-based middle school curriculum program, Mathematics in Context, this book demonstrates the challenges of conducting comparative longitudinal research in the reality of school life. The study was designed to answer three questions: What is the impact on student performance of the Mathematics in Context instructional approach, which differs from most conventional mathematics texts in both content and expected pedagogy? How is this impact different from that of traditional instruction on student performance? What variables associated with classroom instruction account for variation in student performance?The researchers examined a range of variables that affected data collection. These variations highlight the need to study the effects of the culture in which student learning is situated when analyzing the impact of standards-based curricula on student achievement.This book is directed to educational researchers interested in curriculum implementation, mathematics educators interested in the effects of using reform curriculum materials in classrooms, evaluators and research methodologists interested in structural modeling and scaling of instructional variables, and educational policy makers concerned about reform efforts.

This book examines the origins and development of children's mathematical knowledge. It contrasts the widely held view that counting is the starting point for mathematical development with an alternative comparison-of-quantities position. According to the comparison-of-quantities position, the concept of number builds upon more basic concepts of equality, inequality, and less-than and greater-than relations, which derive from comparisons between unenumerated quantities such as lengths. The concept of number combines these basic comparative concepts with the concept of a unit of measure, which allows one quantity to be described as a multiple of another. Sophian examines these alternative accounts of children's developing mathematical knowledge in the light of research: on children's counting; on their reasoning about continuous quantities such as length and area; on the development of the concept of unit; on additive and multiplicative reasoning; and on knowledge about fractions. In the closing chapters, Sophian draws out the developmental and the educational implications of the research and theory presented. Developmentally, the comparison-of-quantities position undermines the idea that numerical knowledge develops through domain-specific learning mechanisms in that it links numerical development both to physical knowledge about objects, which is the starting point for the concept of unit, and to the acquisition of linguistic number terms. Instructionally, the comparison-of-quantities perspective diverges from the counting-first perspective in that it underscores the continuity between whole-number arithmetic and fraction learning that stems from the importance of the concept of unit for both. Building on this idea, Sophian advances three instructional recommendations: First, instruction about numbers should always be grounded in thinking about quantities and how numbers represent the relations between them; second, instruction in the early years should always be guided by a long-term perspective in which current objectives are shaped by an understanding of their role in the overall course of mathematics learning; and third, instruction should be directly toward promoting the acquisition of the most general mathematical knowledge possible. The Origins of Mathematical Knowledge in Childhood is intended for researchers, professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology, educational psychology, and mathematics education, and as a supplementary text for advanced undergraduate courses in cognitive development, educational psychology, and mathematics education.

Mathematics Teacher Noticing is the first book to examine research on the particular type of noticing done by teachers---how teachers pay attention to and make sense of what happens in the complexity of instructional situations. In the midst of all that is happening in a classroom, where do mathematics teachers look, what do they see, and what sense do they make of it? This groundbreaking collection begins with an overview of the construct of noticing and the various historical, theoretical, and methodological perspectives on teacher noticing. It then focuses on studies of mathematics teacher noticing in the context of teaching and learning and concludes by suggesting links to other constructs integral to teaching. By collecting the work of leaders in the field in one volume, the editors present the current state of research and provide ideas for how future work could further the field.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Mathematics Teacher Noticing is the first book to examine research on the particular type of noticing done by teachers---how teachers pay attention to and make sense of what happens in the complexity of instructional situations. In the midst of all that is happening in a classroom, where do mathematics teachers look, what do they see, and what sense do they make of it? This groundbreaking collection begins with an overview of the construct of noticing and the various historical, theoretical, and methodological perspectives on teacher noticing. It then focuses on studies of mathematics teacher noticing in the context of teaching and learning and concludes by suggesting links to other constructs integral to teaching. By collecting the work of leaders in the field in one volume, the editors present the current state of research and provide ideas for how future work could further the field.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Teachers try to help their students learn. But why do they make the particular teaching choices they do? What resources do they draw upon? What accounts for the success or failure of their efforts? In How We Think, esteemed scholar and mathematician, Alan H. Schoenfeld, proposes a groundbreaking theory and model for how we think and act in the classroom and beyond. Based on thirty years of research on problem solving and teaching, Schoenfeld provides compelling evidence for a concrete approach that describes how teachers, and individuals more generally, navigate their way through in-the-moment decision-making in well-practiced domains. Applying his theoretical model to detailed representations and analyses of teachers at work as well as of professionals outside education, Schoenfeld argues that understanding and recognizing the goal-oriented patterns of our day to day decisions can help identify what makes effective or ineffective behavior in the classroom and beyond.

Teachers try to help their students learn. But why do they make the particular teaching choices they do? What resources do they draw upon? What accounts for the success or failure of their efforts? In How We Think, esteemed scholar and mathematician, Alan H. Schoenfeld, proposes a groundbreaking theory and model for how we think and act in the classroom and beyond. Based on thirty years of research on problem solving and teaching, Schoenfeld provides compelling evidence for a concrete approach that describes how teachers, and individuals more generally, navigate their way through in-the-moment decision-making in well-practiced domains. Applying his theoretical model to detailed representations and analyses of teachers at work as well as of professionals outside education, Schoenfeld argues that understanding and recognizing the goal-oriented patterns of our day to day decisions can help identify what makes effective or ineffective behavior in the classroom and beyond.

This book tells a single story, in many voices, about a serious and sustained set of changes in mathematics teaching practice in a high school and how those efforts influenced and were influenced by a local university. It includes the writings and perspectives of high school students, high school teachers, preservice teacher candidates, doctoral students in mathematics education and other fields, mathematics teacher educators, and other education faculty. As a whole, this case study provides an opportunity to reflect on reform visions of mathematics for all students and the challenges inherent in the implementation of these visions in US schools. It challenges us to rethink boundaries between theory and practice and the relative roles of teachers and university faculty in educational endeavors.

Every year, significant numbers of immigrant children from Mexico enter classrooms in the United States. These immigrants comprise a heterogeneous group of students with diverse needs, abilities, and experiences. Transnational and Borderland Studies in Mathematics Education is the first collection to offer research studies across these communities. Providing invaluable research on both sending and receiving communities in Mexico and the US, this collection considers the multiple aspects of children’s experiences with mathematics, including curriculum, classroom participation structures, mathematical reasoning and discourse – both in and out of school – and parents’ perceptions and beliefs about mathematics instruction. An important treatment of an insufficiently documented subject, this collection brings together researchers on both sides of the border to foster and support an interest in documenting evidence that will set the stage for future studies in mathematics education.

A Co-Publication of Routledge for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)In recent years there has been increased interest in the nature and role of proof in mathematics education; with many mathematics educators advocating that proof should be a central part of the mathematics education of students at all grade levels. This important new collection provides that much-needed forum for mathematics educators to articulate a connected K-16 "story" of proof. Such a story includes understanding how the forms of proof, including the nature of argumentation and justification as well as what counts as proof, evolve chronologically and cognitively and how curricula and instruction can support the development of students’ understanding of proof. Collectively these essays inform educators and researchers at different grade levels about the teaching and learning of proof at each level and, thus, help advance the design of further empirical and theoretical work in this area. By building and extending on existing research and by allowing a variety of voices from the field to be heard, Teaching and Learning Proof Across the Grades not only highlights the main ideas that have recently emerged on proof research, but also defines an agenda for future study.

How Chinese Teach Mathematics and Improve Teaching builds upon existing studies to examine mathematics classroom instruction in China. It combines contributions from Chinese scholars with commentary from key Western scholars to offer multiple perspectives in viewing and learning about some important and distinctive features of mathematics classroom instruction. Viewing classroom instruction as part of teachers’ instructional practices, this book goes beyond teachers’ in-classroom instructional practice by also examining Chinese teachers’ approaches and practices in developing and improving teaching. Through this unique approach, How Chinese Teach Mathematics and Improve Teaching expands and unpacks the otherwise fragmented knowledge about Chinese practices in developing and carrying out mathematics classroom instruction.This book is indispensible reading for those interested in Chinese practices in mathematics teaching, and is a key book for teacher educators, school administrators and policy makers in expanding ways of supporting and helping mathematics teachers in instructional development and improvement.

How Chinese Teach Mathematics and Improve Teaching builds upon existing studies to examine mathematics classroom instruction in China. It combines contributions from Chinese scholars with commentary from key Western scholars to offer a truly systematic examination of some important and distinctive features of mathematics classroom instruction. Viewing classroom instruction as part of teachers’ instructional practices, this book goes beyond teachers’ in-classroom instructional practice by also examining Chinese teachers’ approaches and practices in developing and improving teaching. Through this unique approach, How Chinese Teach Mathematics and Improve Teaching expands and unpacks the otherwise fragmented knowledge about Chinese practices in developing and carrying out mathematics classroom instruction.

This book compiles and synthesizes existing research on teachers’ use of mathematics curriculum materials and the impact of curriculum materials on teaching and teachers, with a particular emphasis on – but not restricted to – those materials developed in the 1990s in response to the NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. Despite the substantial amount of curriculum development activity over the last 15 years and growing scholarly interest in their use, the book represents the first compilation of research on teachers and mathematics curriculum materials and the first volume with this focus in any content area in several decades.

A Co-Publication of Routledge for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)In recent years there has been increased interest in the nature and role of proof in mathematics education; with many mathematics educators advocating that proof should be a central part of the mathematics education of students at all grade levels. This important new collection provides that much-needed forum for mathematics educators to articulate a connected K-16 "story" of proof. Such a story includes understanding how the forms of proof, including the nature of argumentation and justification as well as what counts as proof, evolve chronologically and cognitively and how curricula and instruction can support the development of students’ understanding of proof. Collectively these essays inform educators and researchers at different grade levels about the teaching and learning of proof at each level and, thus, help advance the design of further empirical and theoretical work in this area. By building and extending on existing research and by allowing a variety of voices from the field to be heard, Teaching and Learning Proof Across the Grades not only highlights the main ideas that have recently emerged on proof research, but also defines an agenda for future study.

Summarizing data derived from a four-year combined longitudinal/ cross-sectional comparative study of the implementation of one standards-based middle school curriculum program, Mathematics in Context, this book demonstrates the challenges of conducting comparative longitudinal research in the reality of school life. The study was designed to answer three questions: What is the impact on student performance of the Mathematics in Context instructional approach, which differs from most conventional mathematics texts in both content and expected pedagogy? How is this impact different from that of traditional instruction on student performance? What variables associated with classroom instruction account for variation in student performance?The researchers examined a range of variables that affected data collection. These variations highlight the need to study the effects of the culture in which student learning is situated when analyzing the impact of standards-based curricula on student achievement.This book is directed to educational researchers interested in curriculum implementation, mathematics educators interested in the effects of using reform curriculum materials in classrooms, evaluators and research methodologists interested in structural modeling and scaling of instructional variables, and educational policy makers concerned about reform efforts.

This book compiles and synthesizes existing research on teachers’ use of mathematics curriculum materials and the impact of curriculum materials on teaching and teachers, with a particular emphasis on – but not restricted to – those materials developed in the 1990s in response to the NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. Despite the substantial amount of curriculum development activity over the last 15 years and growing scholarly interest in their use, the book represents the first compilation of research on teachers and mathematics curriculum materials and the first volume with this focus in any content area in several decades.

In the early 1980s there was virtually no serious communication among the various groups that contribute to mathematics education -- mathematicians, mathematics educators, classroom teachers, and cognitive scientists. Members of these groups came from different traditions, had different perspectives, and rarely gathered in the same place to discuss issues of common interest. Part of the problem was that there was no common ground for the discussions -- given the disparate traditions and perspectives.As one way of addressing this problem, the Sloan Foundation funded two conferences in the mid-1980s, bringing together members of the different communities in a ground clearing effort, designed to establish a base for communication. In those conferences, interdisciplinary teams reviewed major topic areas and put together distillations of what was known about them.*A more recent conference -- upon which this volume is based -- offered a forum in which various people involved in education reform would present their work, and members of the broad communities gathered would comment on it. The focus was primarily on college mathematics, informed by developments in K-12 mathematics. The main issues of the conference were mathematical thinking and problem solving.

This volume focuses on the important mathematical idea of functions that, with the technology of computers and calculators, can be dynamically represented in ways that have not been possible previously. The book's editors contend that as result of recent technological developments combined with the integrated knowledge available from research on teaching, instruction, students' thinking, and assessment, curriculum developers, researchers, and teacher educators are faced with an unprecedented opportunity for making dramatic changes.The book presents content considerations that occur when the mathematics of graphs and functions relate to curriculum. It also examines content in a carefully considered integration of research that conveys where the field stands and where it might go. Drawing heavily on their own work, the chapter authors reconceptualize research in their specific areas so that this knowledge is integrated with the others' strands. This model for synthesizing research can serve as a paradigm for how research in mathematics education can -- and probably should -- proceed.

Until recently there had been relatively little integration of programs of research on teaching, learning, curriculum, and assessment. However, in the last few years it has become increasingly apparent that a more unified program of research is needed to acquire an understanding of teaching and learning in schools that will inform curriculum development and assessment. The chapters in this volume represent a first step toward an integration of research paradigms in one clearly specified mathematical domain.Integrating a number of different research perspectives is a complex task, and ways must be found to reduce the complexity without sacrificing the integration. The research discussed in this volume is tied together because it deals with a common content strand. During the last ten years specific content domains have served as focal points for research on the development of mathematical concepts in children. The areas of addition and subtraction, algebra, rational numbers, and geometry are notable examples. Whether a similar organizational structure will prevail for programs of research that integrate the study of teaching, learning, curriculum, and assessment is an open question. The perspectives presented in this volume illustrate the potential for adopting this perspective.

This book grew out of a five-year collaboration between groups of American and German mathematics educators. The central issue addressed accounting for the messiness and complexity of mathematics learning and teaching as it occurs in classroom situations. The individual chapters are based on the view that psychological and sociological perspectives each tell half of a good story. To unify these concepts requires a combined approach that takes individual students' mathematical activity seriously while simultaneously seeing their activity as necessarily socially situated. Throughout their collaboration, the chapter authors shared a single set of video recordings and transcripts made in an American elementary classroom where instruction was generally compatible with recent reform recommendations. As a consequence, the book is much more than a compendium of loosely related papers. The combined approach taken by the authors draws on interactionism and ethnomethodology. Thus, it constitutes an alternative to Vygotskian and Soviet activity theory approaches. The specific topics discussed in individual chapters include small group collaboration and learning, the teacher's practice and growth, and language, discourse, and argumentation in the mathematics classroom. This collaborative effort is valuable to educators and psychologists interested in situated cognition and the relation between sociocultural processes and individual psychological processes.

Why do some children seem to learn mathematics easily and others slave away at it, learning it only with great effort and apparent pain? Why are some people good at algebra but terrible at geometry? How can people who successfully run a business as adults have been failures at math in school? How come some professional mathematicians suffer terribly when trying to balance a checkbook? And why do school children in the United States perform so dismally in international comparisons? These are the kinds of real questions the editors set out to answer, or at least address, in editing this book on mathematical thinking. Their goal was to seek a diversity of contributors representing multiple viewpoints whose expertise might converge on the answers to these and other pressing and interesting questions regarding this subject.The chapter authors were asked to focus on their own approach to mathematical thinking, but also to address a common core of issues such as the nature of mathematical thinking, how it is similar to and different from other kinds of thinking, what makes some people or some groups better than others in this subject area, and how mathematical thinking can be assessed and taught. Their work is directed to a diverse audience -- psychologists interested in the nature of mathematical thinking and abilities, computer scientists who want to simulate mathematical thinking, educators involved in teaching and testing mathematical thinking, philosophers who need to understand the qualitative aspects of logical thinking, anthropologists and others interested in how and why mathematical thinking seems to differ in quality across cultures, and laypeople and others who have to think mathematically and want to understand how they are going to accomplish that feat.

Why do some children seem to learn mathematics easily and others slave away at it, learning it only with great effort and apparent pain? Why are some people good at algebra but terrible at geometry? How can people who successfully run a business as adults have been failures at math in school? How come some professional mathematicians suffer terribly when trying to balance a checkbook? And why do school children in the United States perform so dismally in international comparisons? These are the kinds of real questions the editors set out to answer, or at least address, in editing this book on mathematical thinking. Their goal was to seek a diversity of contributors representing multiple viewpoints whose expertise might converge on the answers to these and other pressing and interesting questions regarding this subject.The chapter authors were asked to focus on their own approach to mathematical thinking, but also to address a common core of issues such as the nature of mathematical thinking, how it is similar to and different from other kinds of thinking, what makes some people or some groups better than others in this subject area, and how mathematical thinking can be assessed and taught. Their work is directed to a diverse audience -- psychologists interested in the nature of mathematical thinking and abilities, computer scientists who want to simulate mathematical thinking, educators involved in teaching and testing mathematical thinking, philosophers who need to understand the qualitative aspects of logical thinking, anthropologists and others interested in how and why mathematical thinking seems to differ in quality across cultures, and laypeople and others who have to think mathematically and want to understand how they are going to accomplish that feat.