Jinfa Cai, Anne Morris, Charles Hohensee, Stephen Hwang, Victoria Robison, and James Hiebert
In the March 2017 editorial, the editors considered the impact of research on students’ learning. This editorial discusses the natural next step: examining the conditions under which students can achieve broad goals.
Jennifer M. Langer-Osuna
The field of mathematics education research has seen a resurgence of interest in understanding collaborative learning because students in K–12 classrooms are increasingly expected to make sense of mathematics problems together. This Research Commentary argues for the importance of understanding student authority relations in collaborative mathematics classrooms.
Caroline (Caro) Williams-Pierce, Elizabeth L. Pier, Candace Walkington, Rebecca Boncoddo, Virginia Clinton, Martha W. Alibali, and Mitchell J. Nathan
In this Brief Report, the authors share the main findings from their research into embodied cognition and proof activities. They discuss implications for assessment practices and teacher education and suggest directions for future research into embodied mathematical proof practices.
Catherine Lewis and Rebecca Perry
An understanding of fractions eludes many U.S. students. This randomized trial of lesson study supported by mathematical resources assigned 39 educator teams across the United States to locally managed lesson study supported by a fractions lesson study resource kit or to 1 of 2 control conditions. Results suggest that integrating research-based resources into lesson study offers a new approach to the problem of “scale-up” by combining the strengths of teacher leadership and research-based knowledge.
Andrew Izsák and Erik Jacobson
Past studies have documented students’ and teachers’ persistent difficulties in determining whether 2 quantities covary in a direct proportion, especially when presented missing-value word problems. In the current study, we combine a mathematical analysis with a psychological perspective to offer a new explanation for such difficulties. The authors illustrate how the combination of mathematical analysis and psychological perspective may be applied to data using empirical examples drawn from interviews during which preservice middle-grades teachers reasoned with varying degrees of success about relationships presented in word problems that were and were not proportional.