In 12 audio taped sessions, three kindergarten children engaged algebra in a teaching for understanding, thematic project. Toni, Asa, and Cornel had one-on-one lessons dealing with simple natural numbers, patterns, and relationships. Along the way, each child studied one of Toni Morrison's Who's got game books to explore repetition patterns in…

The purpose of this study is to contribute to an understanding of how errors could be employed in mathematics instruction so that the students use them constructively in support of their learning of mathematics. A teaching experiment was designed to create an ideal context in which the pedagogical approach to errors as springboards could be…

Teachers' perceptions about the nature of their discipline are important factors in their curricular decisions, behavior in the classroom, and interpretations and reactions to classroom events. It is not an easy task to access one's beliefs nor stimulate genuine dialogue about them. Errors can provide both the motivations and the means for…

For learners to develop powerful conceptions of mathematics, they must have opportunities to experience mathematics--to make conjectures, explore mathematical relationships, justify claims, engage in mathematical communication, and connect concepts within and outside of mathematics. If learners are to experience mathematics in this way,…