Annotated Bibliography

This is a post to keep track of MTH 629 readings.  It will be updated


Annotated Bibliography


“Tailoring Tasks to Meet Students’ Needs,”  McDuffie, Wohlhunter, Breyfogle, Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, vol 16, no 9, May 2011.

Four strategies to make curriculum/lessons/instruction fit student needs.  Eg. ELL & Special Education students.
1.  Switch to a familiar context
2.  Supplement foundational gaps
3.  Incorporate overarching goals
4.  Adjust for reading levels


"Problems That Encourage Proportion Sense," Billings, Esther H.M, Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, vol 7, no 1, Sept 2001.

Students often fail to consider the reasonableness of answers.  The use of non-numeric problems can encourage proportion sense in students.


"Using Assessment for Effective Learning," Lee, Clare Mathematics Teaching, June 2001

Formative Assessment can be shown to clearly raise standards.  Some specific methods:
1. Ask Questions worth thinking about - questions without easy answers
2. Questions that last a lesson or two - keep students engaged
3. Students write their own questions - quickly identifies strengths and weaknesses
4. Last 5 minutes - students reflect, tell what they know now that they didn't know
5. Give yourself a score out of 5 - do 5 questions from a lesson, have students score themselves (without seeing the answers first) and then review only the questions that students felt they missed
6. What questions do you have about how to complete a task? - student write the "5 burning questions" highlighting what information is still needed to complete a problem
7. Peer homework correcting, using detailed solutions - students grade each others' work, using answer keys with steps given, and must debate about what indicates showing work correctly.


"Toward an educationally relevant theory of literacy learning:  Twenty years of inquiry"  Cambourne, Brain,  The Reading Teacher, vol 49, no 3, Nov. 1995

A study that quantified the conditions needed for language growth shows that these same conditions could be applied to all types of learning.  The conditions were:
1. Immersion
2. Demonstration
3. Engagement
4. Expectations
5. Responsibility
6. Approximations
7. Employment
8. Response



"One Teacher's Story," Collins, Anne M., Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, vol 16, no 1, August 2010

Account of a middle school math teacher's attempt to focus on teaching problem solving methods.  The teacher encouraged the students to use common problem-solving strategies (model it, make a table, etc...) while solving an involved, multi-step problem.  Students were expected to clearly communicate their solutions while justifying their steps, and an alternative (1-4pt) grading scale was utilized.