Investigating Elementary Mathematics Curricula: Focus on Students With Learning Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to investigate three elementary mathematics curricula to examine the accessibility for students with learning disabilities (LD) with regards to challenges associated with working memory. We chose to focus on students' experiences when finding the area of composite shapes due to the multiple steps involved for solving these problems and the potential for these problems to tax working memory. We conducted a qualitative analysis of how each curriculum provided opportunities for students with LD to engage with these problems. During our analysis, we focused on instruction that emphasized visual representations (e.g., manipulatives, drawings, and diagrams), facilitated mathematical conversations, and developed cognitive and metacognitive skills. Our findings indicated a need for practitioners to consider how each curriculum provides instruction for storage and organization of information as well as how each curriculum develops students' thinking processes and conceptual understanding of mathematics. We concluded that all three curricula provide potentially effective strategies for teaching students with LD to solve multi‐step problems, such as area of composite shapes problems, but teachers using any of these curricula will likely need to supplement the curriculum to meet the needs of students with LD.     

高等数学课程教学改革研究与实践--数学建模向高等数学课程的渗透与探索

就高等教育进入大众化教育阶段的精英教育模式进行了探索.针对高等数学课程提出了教学内容与教学方法改革的设想,经过教学实践取得了较好的效果.     

刍议大学数学教学活动的问题与对策

当前各高校的大学数学教学或多或少存在一些不协调的地方,如理科类学生课程深度过大,文科类学生数学能力弱,考核试卷的难度控制不好等等.针对大学数学的教学法及大众化教育的分析研究,结合教学实践,提出大学数学教学改革的一些对策.     

高等数学课堂教学与一题多解

高等数学是理工科院校一门十分重要的公共基础课程,在自然科学、工程技术、生命科学、社会科学、经济管理等众多领域有着广泛的应用．对待作为高等数学课堂上的主体——学生,教师应当积极正面评价学生,激发学生的学习兴趣,启发学生主动思考,全面培养学生解决数学问题的能力,并在课堂教学中贯彻这一思想．课堂教学也表明：学生积极主动的应用多种思路解决一道题远比老师灌输性的介绍一道题的多种解法要更具有积极意义．     

Research, Reform, and Equity in U.S. Mathematics Education

This article discusses mathematics education research in relation to equity and current U.S. reforms. Although mathematics education researchers and reformers give attention to equity, work in this area tends to ignore relevant social and cultural issues. I begin by surveying articles on equity published in recent, mainstream education journals, highlighting the lack of attention given to social class and ethnicity. I discuss the implications of this limited research base. Specifically, I argue that current mathematics education reforms have been shaped by good intentions and existing research, neither of which offers adequate guidance to address the complexities of equity in mathematics classrooms today. Drawing from a study of social class differences in students' experiences in one reform-oriented classroom, I discuss the challenges and dilemmas inherent in sociocultural approaches to research in mathematics education and their potential contributions. I call for research from a sociocultural perspective, focusing on ways in which students from underrepresented groups can struggle when encountering particular instructional approaches, and ways in which teachers and students are able to address such struggles.     

Research,Reform, and Equity in U.S. Mathematics Education

This article discusses mathematics education research in relation to equity and current U.S. reforms. Although mathematics education researchers and reformers give attention to equity, work in this area tends to ignore relevant social and cultural issues. I begin by surveying articles on equity published in recent, mainstream education journals, highlighting the lack of attention given to social class and ethnicity. I discuss the implications of this limited research base. Specifically, I argue that current mathematics education reforms have been shaped by good intentions and existing research, neither of which offers adequate guidance to address the complexities of equity in mathematics classrooms today. Drawing from a study of social class differences in students' experiences in one reform-oriented classroom, I discuss the challenges and dilemmas inherent in sociocultural approaches to research in mathematics education and their potential contributions. I call for research from a sociocultural perspective, focusing on ways in which students from underrepresented groups can struggle when encountering particular instructional approaches, and ways in which teachers and students are able to address such struggles.     

Structural Learning: Attraction and Conformity in Task-Oriented Groups

This study extends previous research that showed how informal social sanctions can backfire when members prefer friendship over enforcement of group norms. We use a type of neural network to model the coordination of informal social control in a small group of adaptive agents confronted with a social dilemma. This model incorporates two mechanisms of social influence, informal sanctions and imitation. Both mechanisms vary with the strength of the social tie between source and target. Previous research focused on the effects of social sanctions. Here, we demonstrate a curvilinear effect of imitation on compliance with prosocial norms. Moderate doses of imitation reduce the coordination complexity of self-organized collective action and help the network achieve satisfactory levels of cooperation. High doses, however, undermine the agent-based learning required to find cooperative solutions. Increasing group size also diminishes compliance due to increased complexity, with larger groups requiring more imitation to overcome the coordination problem.     

素质教育观下的工科数学教学改革

“素质”是认识主体对客观世界及其事物的反映和认识所拥有的悟性及潜能 .所谓“数学素质”是指人认识和处理数形规律 ,逻辑关系及抽象事物的悟性和潜能 ,它包括数学知识、数学方法、数学思想和数学能力、数学意识、数学语言、科学精神和科学价值观以及使用计算机的技能和能力 .“数学素质教育”则是通过系统的数学教学来启发人的这种悟性、挖掘这种潜能 ,从而达到培养能力、开发智力的过程 .随着知识经济时代的来临和知识创新工程的启动 ,培养具有良好内在素质和创新思维能力的人才是社会对高等学校越来越迫切的要求 ,也为现行的高等学校工…     

Sociocultural Factors Influencing Students' Learning in Science and Mathematics: An Analysis of the Perspectives of African American Students

The voices of African American students reveal sociocultural factors that influence their achievement in science and mathematics classes. Using a sociocultural theoretical framework ( Mercer & Covey, 1980 ), this ethnographic study interpreted the perspectives of five African American students as they discussed their learning experiences in science and mathematics classrooms. This framework acknowledges the vulnerability of the educational system to societal influences that inevitably assert cultural values and norms. The students' discussions provided insight into their beliefs about the varied ways in which sociocultural factors impact their learning in science and mathematics classrooms.     

Communication in Mathematics: Preparing Preservice Teachers to Include Writing in Mathematics Teaching and Learning

“Math was strictly math, from what I remember.” This is a comment about using writing in mathematics from a preservice elementary teacher enrolled in a methods course. Comments such as these concern teacher educators who wish to prepare elementary teachers to include writing in mathematics instruction. A teacher development experiment was completed to discover how to improve preservice teachers’ abilities and attitudes toward using writing in mathematics. The preservice teachers made use of a graphic organizer to facilitate writing in the college math methods class, then practiced teaching writing with the same graphic organizer and in the math classes in an elementary classroom. Reflections of the preservice teachers illustrated this was a positive practice. The preservice teachers also concluded that writing in mathematics is valuable to instruction and would include it in their teaching.