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Research & Resources

Celebrate Mathematical Curiosity

Spark the next generation's natural inquisitiveness, put the Process Standards into action, and capitalize on teachable moments to foster conceptual understanding.

Characterizations of Social Based Context

Characterization of Social-Based and Self-Based Contexts Associated With Students' Awareness, Evaluation, and Regulation of Their Thinking During Small-Group Mathematical Modeling

Fluency with Basic Addition

Applying known facts to derive unknown facts results in efficiency, flexibility, and an understanding of number combinations for young students.

Foundations of Student Centered Instruction

What is basic in mathematics is as simple as this. Math makes sense! Every child in his or her own way can come to believe this. More important, every child can come to believe that he or she is capable of making sense of mathematics.

Initiating and Eliciting in Teaching

We address the telling/not-telling dilemma in mathematics education.

Understanding by Design - Chapter 2, Understanding Understanding

This chapter of Understanding by Design guides the reader through the conceptual shift from answer-getting to process understanding.

Contexts for Column Addition and Subtraction

Everyday settings, like enjoying freshly baked cookies, can foster proficiency and enhance students' conceptual understanding.

Children's Mathematics

Cognitively Guided Instruction

 

Inquiry-based learning: pretty much a bust

In an article in the Spring 2012 American Educator, Richard Clark, Paul Kirschner, and John Sweller seek to end the debate as to whether all people -- novices and experts alike -- learn best when provided with unguided or partly guided instruction. The authors find that decades of research clearly demonstrate that for novices (virtually all students), direct, explicit instruction is more effective and efficient than partial guidance. Teachers should provide explicit direction accompanied by practice and feedback, rather than require students to discover aspects of what they must learn. The authors stress this does not mean direct, expository instruction all day every day. Small groups and independent problems and projects can be effective, not as vehicles for discovery but for practicing recently learned content and skills. They also stress explicit instructional guidance can come through a variety of ways: lectures, modeling, videos, computer-based presentations, and realistic demonstrations, as well as class discussions and activities. After a half century of advocacy associated with instruction using minimal guidance, they find no sound research supporting the technique with anyone other than the most expert students. Evidence from controlled, experimental studies almost uniformly supports full and explicit instructional guidance.
Read more: http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/index.cfm

 


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