Take Time For Action: The Number of Trials Does Matter

2002 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-108
Author(s):  
Leslie Aspinwall ◽  
James Tarr
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
School Mathematics ◽  
School Students ◽  
Principles And Standards

PRINCIPLES AND STANDARDS FOR SCHOOL Mathematics (NCTM 2000) calls for middle school students to develop and evaluate inferences that are based on data. Combining or “pooling” data from simulations reduces the likelihood of drawing incorrect inferences. But are your students aware that more accurate inferences can be drawn from larger sets of data and that smaller samples are more likely to produce unusual results?

Connecting Measurement and Architecture: Building an Inflatable

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 144-149
Author(s):  
Elizabeth D. Gray ◽  
Denise Tullier-Holly
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Real World ◽  
School Mathematics ◽  
Classroom Experiences ◽  
School Students ◽  
The Real ◽  
Mathematical Connections ◽  
Principles And Standards

Middle school students need to see connections between mathematics and the real world. However, they often learn mathematics as a set of distinct topics or separate strands, because a majority of the available textbooks tends to present it that way, and teachers tend to follow the textbooks. According to Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM 2000), our students should be made aware of mathematical connections explicitly so that the manner in which topics are connected is obvious. McClain (1996) suggests that if teachers offer classroom experiences in which students can see connections, then “the vibrant discipline of mathematics actively engages students in their own learning” (p. 682).

Short Takes: Another Good Idea: Pasta Symmetry

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 516-517
Author(s):  
Tara Windle
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Middle Grades ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Rotational Symmetry ◽  
Authentic Assessment ◽  
School Mathematics ◽  
School Students ◽  
Mathematical Ideas ◽  
Principles And Standards

Students enjoy the chance to be creative, especially those in the middle grades. Teachers can channel that creative energy into an authentic assessment tool that students will love. Principles and Standards for School Mathematics states that students in middle school are expected to “apply transformations and use symmetry to analyze mathematical situations” (p. 232). Our students have also been challenged to “recognize and apply mathematics in contexts outside of mathematics” (p. 274) and to “create and use representations to organize, record, and communicate mathematical ideas” (p. 280). Using card-stock paper, glue, gold spray paint (optional), and as many varieties of pasta as I could find, I gave my sixthgrade middle school students the opportunity to convince me that they understood the concepts of reflectional and/or rotational symmetry while creating a unique piece of art.

Lollipop Statistics

2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-15
Author(s):  
Dianne S. Goldsby
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Middle School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
School Mathematics ◽  
Constructivist Approach ◽  
School Students ◽  
Area Of Interest ◽  
Approach To Teaching ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Principles And Standards

AS NCTM'S Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000) points out, students should work directly with data to understand the fundamentals of statistical ideas. Teachers should also introduce statistics in a way that will capture the attention of students of varying abilities and interests. The constructivist approach to teaching emphasizes the idea that students work better when presented with tasks that are meaningful and relevant; in other words, they expend energy on topics that interest them (Brahier 2000). One way to harness that energy in the classroom is to teach with music, an area of interest for most middle school and high school students. This article describes the use of the 1950s hit “Lollipop” (Ross and Dixon 1986), heard in the movie Stand by Me, as a launching point to introduce ideas of counting, working with frequency tables, and graphing data.

Integrating Mathematics and Social Issues

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 270-276
Author(s):  
Gregory K. Harrell
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Mathematics Teachers ◽  
Real World ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
School Students ◽  
The Real ◽  
Community Issues ◽  
Principles And Standards

The Connections Standard in grades 6–8 in Principles and Standards for School Mathematics recommends that middle school students “recognize and apply mathematics in contexts outside of mathematics” (NCTM 2000, p. 274). This goal can be reached by providing students with rich problem contexts that involve connections to the real world (NCTM 2000). To find such contexts, mathematics teachers can look to the local community, because our culture influences the mathematics we do and influences the issues that are important to us. If teachers present students with interdisciplinary experiences within the context of local community issues, students will understand the usefulness of mathematics and it will help them develop the skills and knowledge necessary to become active participants in their communities (Zaslavsky 1996).

Birthdays and the Binary System: A Magical Mixture

1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-12
Author(s):  
Karen S. Karp ◽  
Robert N. Ronau
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Binary System ◽  
School Mathematics ◽  
School Level ◽  
Birth Date ◽  
School Students ◽  
Evaluation Standards ◽  
System A ◽  
Middle School Level

Middle school students rank their birthday as being the most important day of the year for them and one that they eagerly anticipate, according to an informal poll. Teachers can capitalize on this interest by engaging them in the mathematical birth-date activities described in this article. Applications and tasks that are relevant to students' lives have been shown to motivate students at the middle school level, according to the Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM 1989).

scholarly journals The Voces Project: Investigating How Latino/a Immigrant Children Make Sense of Engaging in School and School Mathematics

2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Knudson-Martin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle School ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigrant Children ◽  
School Mathematics ◽  
Institutional Factors ◽  
Mexican Immigrant ◽  
School Students

This study investigates how a group of Mexican immigrant children in the United States made sense of engaging in school and school mathematics.  The research focused on a population of Latino/a middle school students who were a distinct minority, building a model that shows how a complex set of cognitive, sociocultural, and institutional factors mediated these students’ engagement and success in school.  The results of this research will help educators understand the complex social environment that faces immigrant children and impacts their performance and engagement in school and school mathematics.

Poetry in Motion: Using Shel Silverstein's Works to Engage Students in Mathematics

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 386-393
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Bay-Williams
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
School Mathematics ◽  
School Students ◽  
Mathematical Ideas ◽  
Mathematics Problems

Through Brilliant, Clever Poems and prose, Shel Silverstein has worked his way into many classrooms and into the hearts of students and teachers. He wrote poems with an obvious knowledge that a child's mind is active and curious, and middle school students love reading and listening to his words. Imbedded in many of his poems and prose are opportunities to do mathematics in ways that will get students' minds “flickerin'.” Using a poem, picture book, or portions of a novel can raise the curiosity of middle school students and can increase their desire to solve mathematics problems. As students engage in solving literature-based mathematics lessons, they are applying mathematics in different contexts and making connections among mathematical ideas, which are expectations outlined in the Connections Standard in Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM 2000). In the following sections, four delightful Silverstein works prompted engaging mathematics explorations. Each selection focused on a different mathematical strand, although there is much integration of other concepts in the problems.

Cell Phone Coverage Area: Helping Students Achieve in Mathematics

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 300-307
Author(s):  
Rose Mary Zbiek ◽  
Shari Ann Reed ◽  
Tracy Boone
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Cell Phone ◽  
Mathematics Classroom ◽  
Mathematical Idea ◽  
State Assessments ◽  
School Students ◽  
Coverage Area ◽  
The World ◽  
Principles And Standards

The joys of working with middle school students in a mathematics classroom may be tempered by the challenge of meeting external expectations. However, it is possible to carefully design and implement a lesson that both embodies the spirit of Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM 2000) and meets the needs set forth by our state assessments. Such a lesson can address a big mathematical idea through related activities that develop skills and concepts, involve reasoning and writing, and help students use mathematics in the world around them.

scholarly journals MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS’ STATISTICAL LITERACY: ROLE OF GRADE LEVEL AND GENDER

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-131
Author(s):  
AYŞE YOLCU
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Grade Level ◽  
Statistics Education ◽  
Female Students ◽  
School Mathematics ◽  
School Students ◽  
Statistical Literacy

This study examined the role of gender and grade level on middle school students’ statistical literacy. The study was conducted in the spring semester of the 2012-2013 academic year with 598 middle-school students (grades 6–8) from three public schools in Turkey. The data were collected using the Statistical Literacy Test, developed based on Watson’s (1997) statistical literacy framework. Two-way ANOVA results revealed no significant grade level differences although female students performed significantly better than male students. The spiral curriculum in middle school mathematics may explain the lack of differences between grades. The higher performance of female students may be related to the linguistic aspects of statistical literacy, in contrast to the situation in school mathematics. First published November 2014 at Statistics Education Research Journal Archives

Mathematics Projects Promote Students' Algebraic Thinking

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 282-288
Author(s):  
Carol E. Malloy
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Middle School Students ◽  
Mathematics Teachers ◽  
Middle School Mathematics ◽  
Algebraic Thinking ◽  
School Mathematics ◽  
School Students ◽  
Evaluation Standards ◽  
Verbal Rules

Teachers in all curricular areas, especially science, have encouraged students to develop projects to extend their knowledge of specific phenomena. As middle school mathematics teachers grapple with methods to help students enhance algebraic thinking, they should consider the power of the mathematics project. My experiences with students have demonstrated that mathematics projects must be structured as investigations in which students work cooperatively and where the mathematics in the proj-ects is substantial. Projects can provide middle school students with the opportunity to investigate, conjecture, and reach mathematical conclusions that require algebraic thinking, as recommended in the NCTM's Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (1989). This article describes how various projects helped middle school students harness their experiences and construct mathematical conclusions through algebraic thinking Students employed algebraic thinking as they used number patterns and verbal rules to “explore the interrelationships of these representations” (NCTM 1989, 102) and reach conclusions in their projects.

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