Over the past 3 years, we have had the privilege of reading submissions from hundreds of authors and analyzing thousands of reviews for those manuscripts. Many of those manuscripts reported data-driven studies addressing issues that are vital to mathematics education but were not suitable for publication for a range of issues related to the design of the study. Based on input from reviewers as well as her own assessment, it is the formidable responsibility of the editor to craft letters that would help authors improve those manuscripts. In the spirit of sharing with the broader readership the kinds of advice offered to authors over the past few years, we have re-examined those letters and noted patterns in the kinds of issues that were identified. Although each of these issues is one with which the authors (and readers) undoubtedly are familiar, we thought it would be useful to share the ways in which these issues arise in submissions

Kaminski, Sloutsky, and Heckler (2008a) published in Science a study on "The advantage of abstract examples in learning math," in which they claim that students may benefit more from learning mathematics through a single abstract, symbolic representation than from multiple concrete examples. This publication elicited both enthusiastic and critical comments by mathematicians, mathematics educators, and policymakers worldwide. The current empirical study involves a partial replication-but also an important validation and extension-of this widely noticed study.

This study employed a cluster randomized trial design to evaluate the effectiveness of a research-based intervention for improving the mathematics education of very young children. This intervention includes the Building Blocks mathematics curriculum, which is structured in research-based learning trajectories, and congruous professional development emphasizing teaching for understanding via learning trajectories and technology.

There has been increased engagement in studying discourse in the field of mathematics education. But what exactly is a discourse, and how do researchers go about analyzing discourses? This study examines 108 articles from 6 international journals in mathematics education by asking questions such as these: In which traditions and in relation to which kinds of epistemological assumptions are the articles situated? How is the concept of discourse used and defined? How are mathematical aspects of the discourse accentuated?