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In this study, we examined the ability of grades 1-8 pre-service teachers (PSTs) to engage in thinking about patterns, relationships, and functional rules. Using the algebraic habit of mind Building Rules to Represent Functions as a framework, we examined whether and how well our PSTs (n = 18) used seven features of this habit of mind: organize information, predict patterns, chunk information, use different representations, describe a rule, describe change, and justify a rule. The data revealed distinct and significant differences among our PSTs' demonstrated abilities to justify a rule, organize information, predict a pattern, and describe a rule. Their ability to justify a rule was the weakest of the seven features, and it was correlated with the ability to predict patterns and the ability to chunk information. Our analysis reveals the complexity of the relationships among the seven features and provides a tentative grouping of features that together might support one another. Attention to these relationships has the potential to enhance instruction aimed at helping students learn to analyse problem situations that focus on writing rules to represent functional relationships.

This paper presents findings from a larger research project that provides insight into the attitudes of high-school students who were taught using different types of mathematics curricula when they were in middle school. A total of 44 12th-grade students from 10 high schools in the same urban school district were interviewed. Eighteen (41%) of them had been taught using a reform curriculum in middle school and 26 (59%) had been taught using a more traditional curriculum. Using Di Martino and Zan's three-dimensional model for attitude, we found that the high-school seniors who had been taught using the reform curriculum in middle school harbored attitudes toward mathematics that differed significantly from the attitudes of those who had been taught using a traditional curriculum in middle school. Our analysis of the student interviews culled seven themes that provide fine-grained information about the students' attitudes toward mathematics. Significantly greater percentages of reform students than traditional students had a relational Vision of mathematics as opposed to an instrumental Vision; however, there was no significant difference between the proportions of reform and traditional students who had a positive Emotional Disposition toward mathematics or a positive Perceived Competence in mathematics.

In this study, we explored the relationship between prospective teachers' algebraic thinking and the questions they posed during one-on-one diagnostic interviews that focused on investigating the algebraic thinking of middle school students. To do so, we evaluated prospective teachers' algebraic thinking proficiency across 125 algebra-based tasks and we analyzed the characteristics of questions they posed during the interviews. We found that prospective teachers with lower algebraic thinking proficiency did not ask any probing questions. Instead, they either posed questions that simply accepted and affirmed student responses or posed questions that guided the students toward an answer without probing student thinking. In contrast, prospective teachers with higher algebraic thinking proficiency were able to pose probing questions to investigate student thinking or help students clarify their thinking. However, less than half of their questions were of this probing type. These results suggest that prospective teachers' algebraic thinking proficiency is related to the types of questions they ask to explore the algebraic thinking of students. Implications for mathematics teacher education are discussed.

Using algebraic habits of mind as a framework, and focusing on thinking about functions and how they work, we examined the relationship between 18 pre-service middle school teachers' ability to use the features of the algebraic thinking (AT) habit of mind "Building Rules to Represent Functions" and their ability to recognize and interpret the features of the same AT habit of mind in middle school students. We assessed the pre-service teachers' own ability to use the AT habit of mind Building Rules to Represent Functions by examining their solutions to algebra-based tasks in a semester-long mathematics content course. We assessed the pre-service teachers' ability to recognize and interpret students' facility with the AT habit of mind Building Rules to Represent Functions by analyzing their interpretations of students' written solutions to algebra-based tasks and their ability to plan and analyze AT interviews of middle school students during a concurrent field-based education course. The data revealed that the pre-service teachers had a limited ability to recognize the full richness of algebra-based tasks' potential to elicit the features of Building Rules to Represent Functions in students. The pre-service teachers' own overall AT ability to Build Rules to Represent Functions was related to their ability to recognize the overall ability of students to Build Rules to Represent Functions, as exhibited during one-on-one interviews, but not to their ability to recognize the overall ability to Build Rules to Represent Functions exhibited exclusively in students' written work. Implications for mathematics teacher education are discussed.

In this study, we used problem posing as a measure of the effect of middle-school curriculum on students' learning in high school. Students who had used a standards-based curriculum in middle school performed equally well or better in high school than students who had used more traditional curricula. The findings from this study not only show evidence of strengths one might expect of students who used the standards-based reform curriculum but also bolster the feasibility and validity of problem posing as a measure of curriculum effect on student learning. In addition, the findings of this study demonstrate the usefulness of employing a qualitative rubric to assess different characteristics of students' responses to the posing tasks. Instructional and methodological implications of this study, as well as future directions for research, are discussed.

In this article, we present the results from a longitudinal examination of the impact of a "Standards"-based or reform mathematics curriculum (called CMP) and traditional mathematics curricula (called non-CMP) on students' learning of algebra using various outcome measures. Findings include the following: (1) students did not sacrifice basic mathematical skills if they are taught using a "Standards"-based or reform mathematics curriculum like CMP; (2) African American students experienced greater gain in symbol manipulation when they used a traditional curriculum; (3) the use of either the CMP or a non-CMP curriculum improved the mathematics achievement of all students, including students of color; (4) the use of CMP contributed to significantly higher problem-solving growth for all ethnic groups; and (5) a high level of conceptual emphasis in a classroom improved the students' ability to represent problem situations. (However, the level of conceptual emphasis bears no relation to students' problem solving or symbol manipulation skills.) (Contains 12 tables and 3 figures.)

The purpose of the study reported in this article is to examine the impact of curriculum on instruction. Over a three-year period, we observed 579 algebra-related lessons in grades 6-8. Approximately half the lessons were taught in schools that had adopted a "Standards"-based mathematics curriculum called the Connected Mathematics Program (CMP), and the remainder of the lessons were taught in schools that used more traditional curricula (non-CMP). We found many significant differences between the CMP and non-CMP lessons. The CMP lessons, emphasized the conceptual aspects of instruction to a greater extent than the non-CMP lessons and the non-CMP lessons emphasized the procedural aspects of instruction to a greater extent than the CMP lessons. About twice as many CMP lessons as non-CMP lessons were structured to use group work as a method of instruction. During lessons, non-CMP students worked individually on homework about three times as often as CMP students. When it came to text usage, CMP teachers were more likely than non-CMP teachers to work problems from the text and to follow lessons as laid out in the text. However, non-CMP students and teachers were more likely than CMP students and teachers to review examples or find formulas in the text. Surprisingly, only small proportions of the CMP lessons utilized calculators (16%) or manipulatives (11%). (Contains 7 tables and 3 figures.)

Assessed the effectiveness of instruction in promoting sixth-grade students' conceptual understanding of the concept of averages using a leveling model and an open-ended problem-solving approach. Found that students were more capable of using the leveling approach and applying formal averaging algorithm to solve problems than using the open-ended approach. (JPB)

Surveyed parents of middle school students to assess types of in-home parental support for students' mathematics learning. Found that students with the most supportive parents demonstrated higher mathematics achievement and more positive mathematics attitudes than students with the least supportive parents. "Motivator,""Resource Provider," and "Monitor" measures of support were better achievement predictors than "Content Advisor" and "Learning Counselor." (Author/KB)