The United States must restructure mathematics educationâ€"both what is learned and the way it is taughtâ€"if children are to develop the mathematical knowledge and skills they will need to be personally and professionally competent in the twenty-first century. Joining the recent reports that have opened a national dialogue on these issues, Reshaping School Mathematics focuses discussion on essential ideas that transcend details of current curricula or assessment results. It examines changing perspectives on the role of mathematics in society and changing practice in the use of technologyâ€"particularly calculators and computersâ€"in mathematics education.

A thinking student is an engaged student Teachers often find it difficult to implement lessons that help students go beyond rote memorization and repetitive calculations. In fact, institutional norms and habits that permeate all classrooms can actually be enabling "non-thinking" student behavior. Sparked by observing teachers struggle to implement rich mathematics tasks to engage students in deep thinking, Peter Liljedahl has translated his 15 years of research into this practical guide on how to move toward a thinking classroom. Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K–12 helps teachers implement 14 optimal practices for thinking that create an ideal setting for deep mathematics learning to occur. This guide Provides the what, why, and how of each practice and answers teachers’ most frequently asked questions Includes firsthand accounts of how these practices foster thinking through teacher and student interviews and student work samples Offers a plethora of macro moves, micro moves, and rich tasks to get started Organizes the 14 practices into four toolkits that can be implemented in order and built on throughout the year When combined, these unique research-based practices create the optimal conditions for learner-centered, student-owned deep mathematical thinking and learning, and have the power to transform mathematics classrooms like never before.

The wide availability of digital educational resources for mathematics teaching and learning is indisputable, with some notable genres of technologies having evolved, such as graphing calculators, dynamic graphing, dynamic geometry and data visualization tools. But what does this mean for teachers of mathematics, and how do their roles evolve within this digital landscape? This essential book offers an international perspective to help bridge theory and practice, including coverage of networking theories, curriculum design, task implementation, online resources and assessment. Mathematics Education in the Digital Age details the impacts this digital age has, and will continue to have, on the parallel aspects of learning and teaching mathematics within formal education systems and settings. Written by a group of international authors, the chapters address the following themes: Mathematics teacher education and professional development Mathematics curriculum development and task design The assessment of mathematics Theoretical perspectives and methodologies/approaches for researching mathematics education in the digital age This book highlights not only the complex nature of the field, but also the advancements in theoretical and practical knowledge that is enabling the mathematics education community to continue to learn in this increasingly digital age. It is an essential read for all mathematics teacher educators and master teachers.

Traditionally, vocational mathematics and precollege mathematics have been separate in schools. But the technological world in which today's students will work and live calls for increasing connection between mathematics and its applications. Workplace-based mathematics may be good mathematics for everyone. High School Mathematics at Work illuminates the interplay between technical and academic mathematics. This collection of thought-provoking essaysâ€"by mathematicians, educators, and other expertsâ€"is enhanced with illustrative tasks from workplace and everyday contexts that suggest ways to strengthen high school mathematical education. This important book addresses how to make mathematical education of all students meaningfulâ€"how to meet the practical needs of students entering the work force after high school as well as the needs of students going on to postsecondary education. The short readable essays frame basic issues, provide background, and suggest alternatives to the traditional separation between technical and academic mathematics. They are accompanied by intriguing multipart problems that illustrate how deep mathematics functions in everyday settingsâ€"from analysis of ambulance response times to energy utilization, from buying a used car to "rounding off" to simplify problems. The book addresses the role of standards in mathematics education, discussing issues such as finding common ground between science and mathematics education standards, improving the articulation from school to work, and comparing SAT results across settings. Experts discuss how to develop curricula so that students learn to solve problems they are likely to encounter in lifeâ€"while also providing them with approaches to unfamiliar problems. The book also addresses how teachers can help prepare students for postsecondary education. For teacher education the book explores the changing nature of pedagogy and new approaches to teacher development. What kind of teaching will allow mathematics to be a guide rather than a gatekeeper to many career paths? Essays discuss pedagogical implication in problem-centered teaching, the role of complex mathematical tasks in teacher education, and the idea of making open-ended tasksâ€"and the student work they elicitâ€"central to professional discourse. High School Mathematics at Work presents thoughtful views from experts. It identifies rich possibilities for teaching mathematics and preparing students for the technological challenges of the future. This book will inform and inspire teachers, teacher educators, curriculum developers, and others involved in improving mathematics education and the capabilities of tomorrow's work force.

Collectively, the book extends beyond what we can learn about exemplary practices in individual education systems in East Asia. It helps us develop a better understanding of the interplay between various measures for the pursuit of excellence in mathematics curriculum and teacher education on the one hand, and the different system contexts on the other.

This book is the result of a conference sponsored by the Educational Testing Service and the University of Wisconsin's National Center for Research in Mathematical Sciences Education. The purpose of the conference was to facilitate the work of a group of scholars whose interests included the assessment of higher-order understandings and processes in foundation-level (pre-high school) mathematics. Discussions focused on such issues as the purposes of assessment, guidelines for producing and scoring "real-life" assessment activities, and the meanings of such terms as "deeper and higher-order understanding," "cognitive objectives," and "authentic mathematical activities." Assessment was viewed as a critical component of complex, dynamic, and continually adapting educational systems. During the time that the chapters in this book were being written, sweeping changes in mathematics education were being initiated in response to powerful recent advances in technology, cognitive psychology, and mathematics, as well as to numerous public demands for educational reform. These changes have already resulted in significant reappraisals of what it means to understand mathematics, of the nature of mathematics teaching and learning, and of the real-life situations in which mathematics is useful. The challenge was to pursue assessment-related initiatives that are systematically valid, in the sense that they work to complement and enhance other improvements in the educational system rather than act as an impediment to badly needed curriculum reforms. To address these issues, most chapters in this book focus on clarifying and articulating the goals of assessment and instruction, and they stress the content of assessment above its mode of delivery. Computer- or portfolio-based assessments are interpreted as means to ends, not as ends in themselves. Assessment is conceived as an ongoing documentation process, seamless with instruction, whose quality hinges upon its ability to provide complete and appropriate information as needed to inform priorities in instructional decision making. This book tackles some of the most complicated issues related to assessment, and it offers fresh perspectives from leaders in the field--with the hope that the ultimate consumer in the instruction/assessment enterprise, the individual student, will reclaim his or her potential for self-directed mathematics learning.

Today new ways of thinking about learning call for new ways for monitoring learning. Reform in School Mathematics builds from the vision that assessment can become the bridge for instructional activity, accountability, and teacher development. It places teachers in key roles while developing the theme that we cannot reform the way in which school mathematics is taught without radically reforming the ways the effects of that teaching are monitored. Among others, this volume addresses the issues of the specification of performance standards, the development of authentic tasks, the measure of status and growth or a combination, the development of psychometric models, and the development of scoring rubrics. The new models proposed in this book give teachers a wealth of nontraditional assessment strategies and concrete ways to obtain measures of both group and individual differences in growth.