Results of researches on the popularity of mathematics point to the trend of decreasing popularity with the pupils' progression. According to the study of Chvál a stronger decline occurs between the fifth and sixth grades. The presented thesis focuses mainly on what factors of the transition of pupils from the primary to lower-secondary level can influence their attitudes towards mathematics and also on what causes the changes of these attitudes can be named by the pupils of the sixth year. It focuses not only on changes in relation to mathematics, but it also maps the solidarity with the teacher as well as pupils' self- confidence. The research is also concerned with possible changes in the relationship of pupils to mathematics depending on whether they are taught by the Hejny method or not. The research was carried out in the form of questionnaires mapping pupils' attitudes to mathematics and interviews with selected pupils of the schools participating in the research. The sample consisted of 235 pupils in five elementary schools. The complete data was obtained from 161 of them and this data is therefore a substantial part of the results analysis. The results confirmed that the pupils' relationship to mathematics deteriorated on average from primary to lower-secondary level. However, there are classes...

This study set out to determine the relationship between assessment practices and teaching methods. I wanted to investigate whether making mathematical investigation assessment tasks available to elementary-school mathematics teachers would have a positive effect on their teaching. Research tells us that standardized tests influence instruction. My research explored whether a national Assessment Task Bank of mathematical investigative tasks could influence teachers.With these aims in mind, the following research questions were formulated:1. Will the teachers' use of mathematical investigation tasks for assessment purposes influence their view of mathematics?2. Will the teachers' use of mathematical investigation tasks for assessment purposes influence the way they teach, and if so, in what ways?3. Will the teachers' use of mathematical investigation tasks for assessment purposes influence the way they assess their students, and if so, in what ways?My research was divided into two parts: 1) a national study involving teachers-leaders throughout the country; and 2) an intensive study in a small Israeli community, called Sharon. The first part examined how the national courses on assessment that I conducted affected the participating teacher-leaders in terms of their concept of mathematics, their teaching methods and their assessment practices. The second part examined the same issues with regard to the mathematics coordinators in the Sharon community. In each case, I have detailed my experiences so that the reader can gain a view of all facets of the study.The research methodology adopted was based on a constructivist paradigm, sometimes referred to as a "naturalistic inquiry", utilizing ethnographic principles wherein the data collection and analysis procedures were eclectic. In the course of the five years of my research, I used many strategies of data collection - ++ / for example, unstructured participant-observations, interviews, questionnaires and content analysis of artifacts (tests and tasks written by teachers).The ideas of reform mathematics (as defined in Ch 2 of this thesis) are based on a broadened vision of mathematics with emphasis on higher-order thinking. My research indicated that the use of mathematical investigation tasks helped the teachers in my study reach the awareness that mathematics, even on the elementary school level, involves generalizations, justifications and even creativity.Prior to my research, and because of my position, I was aware that Israeli teachers were concerned primarily with teaching routine procedures and that their work sheets for the most part involved single-answer exercises. My research indicated that the use of mathematical investigation tasks indeed influenced the way teachers teach. Verbalization-having the students explain "Why"-has become integral to the teaching practices of the participants in my study. Nowadays, the Israeli teachers I worked with use "authentic tasks" in their classrooms: real-life situations that involve some mathematics. Unfortunately, these tasks are not always planned properly.My research demonstrated that teachers attending my professional courses found the mathematical investigation tasks to be useful for assessment purposes, providing them with additional information about their pupils, not obtainable through conventional assessment methods. The additional criteria (I introduced) for evaluating the pupils' work aided in defining these additional areas. I found that while teachers were quite willing to use the mathematical investigation tasks to supplement the conventional tests, they were reluctant to use them as replacements.Exposure to the Assessment Task Bank influenced to a certain degree, the way the teachers in my study assessed their students. The ++ / tests of the teachers who were participants in my study now regularly include elements that were previously absent: questions requiring explanations and questions with more than one possible answer.Although the teachers of my study were increasingly using questions that required higher-order thinking, the tendency was to use the tests in a summative manner, rather than formatively. In other words, many teachers found it difficult to use test results for planning their subsequent lessons. While they were able to analyze their students' work and could report in some detail on each student's performance, they failed to understand how this should affect their teaching. Before they were exposed to the tasks they had administered tests merely in order to provide grades, whereas now the teachers were often trying to understand the students' thinking.While long-term change is still elusive, my research has demonstrated that exposure to reform mathematics through the mathematical investigative tasks of the Assessment Task Bank did have some influence on the teachers' view of mathematics, as well as their teaching and assessment practices.

During a year-long professional development, the faculty members at an elementary school received instruction on mathematics and how to use the Comprehensive Mathematics Instruction framework. The instruction and the framework were consistent with the standards suggested by the National Council of Teacher of Mathematics (2000). This thesis analyzes the mathematical language used by three fifth-grade teachers who participated in lesson study to create a research lesson based upon the Comprehensive Mathematics Instruction framework.

The purpose of this research was to examine the effect on students' mathematics achievement and attitudes when children's literature was integrated into the mathematics curriculum. A major goal of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM, 1999; 2000) is for students to increase the amount and quality of their mathematical communication skills. This study researched how children's literature when integrated into mathematics might enrich the fourth grade curriculum and provide meaningful experiences for students to communicate their ideas and reasoning, thereby improving achievement. Through my research, I examined if infusing quality children's literature can improve student achievement and motivation in mathematics with three different treatment groups of fourth grade students. The children's literature treatment group received a mathematics lesson integrating children's literature, the textbook treatment group received a textbook-based lesson, and the control treatment group received no instruction. The results indicated that the students who received a lesson had an increase in student achievement and the children's literature treatment group had the highest student achievement in problem solving. Attitudes across all groups did not improve from the one lesson; thus, further research will need to be conducted to see if multiple lessons can change students' attitudes positively.

This study compared the effect of the use of physical manipulative with self-metacognitive questioning versus manipulative without self-metacognitive questioning on the knowledge acquisition in polygons. Participants were 220 sixth grade students. A pretest, treatment and posttest two-group design was used. There were two treatment groups: manipulative with self-metacognitive questioning (MAN+META) and manipulative without self-metacognitive questioning (MAN) Three distinct knowledge tests were designed by the researcher: Declarative, conditional and procedural. Declarative knowledge test consisted of 18 multiple-choice questions. The conditional and procedural knowledge tests consisted of six and ten open-ended questions respectively. Mixed design analysis of variance results revealed that there is a significant effect for time but no group-by-time interaction effect suggesting that both groups responded equally well to treatment in the amount of change in their scores on the two outcome measures: pretests and posttests. A follow up analysis (paired t-test) was conducted to evaluate the impact of time on students&rsquo / pretest and posttest scores. The large effect size indicated that there was a statistically significant increase in scores of all three tests.

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe elementary and mathematics teachers&rsquo / views about the new elementary school mathematics curriculum (NC). A total of 22 elementary teachers (grades 1-5) and mathematics teachers (grades 6-8) Alaca district of &Ccedil / orum participated. The data were collected through one-to-one interviews with some of the participants and written responses for the interview questions provided by the rest of the participants. The findings indicated that the participants had positive views about the impact of the NC. Participants reported that the NC helped students reach meaningful learning through the instructional activities, new content, curriculum materials, and new assessment techniques. Participants had positive views about the new roles for the teachers and the students and the increased student motivation that the NC brought. They also expressed challenges in teaching due to the lack of materials, physical facilities, and time. Local differences impacted the implementation of the NC negatively in rural contexts. The intensity of the NC made instructional activities and the assessment processes difficult to implement in multi-grade and crowded classrooms. Participants did not feel efficient enough to implement the NC since they lacked adequate training and support. While teachers adopted the ideas that the NC brought, they adapted these practices to their existing practices. They reported performing a combination of NC practices and previous practices. Participants claimed that content of Ministry support should be more practice oriented, the curriculum materials should be sufficient in number, and the duration of mathematics lesson should be increased.

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