Most people consider math and physics to be scary beasts from which it is best to keep one’s distance. Computers, however, can help us tame the complexity and tedious arithmetic manipulations associated with these subjects. Indeed, math and physics are much more approachable once you have the power of computers on your side. This tutorial serves a dual purpose. On one hand, it serves as a revie...

Title of Thesis: EFFECT OF INSTRUCTIONAL CONSULTATION ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN THIRD THROUGH FIFTH GRADE Kristi S. Maslak, Master of Arts, 2011 Thesis directed by: Associate Professor William Strein Department of Counseling and Personnel Services The present study evaluated the effect of Instructional Consultation (Rosenfield, 1995) on the academic achievement of third through fifth grade stu...

We examine the achievement gap between low-income minority students in inner city (high-poverty) schools and their white high-income counterparts who attend suburban (lowpoverty) schools. Our data include the 4 and 5 grade math and reading scores for over 15,000 students in a large urban school district. We use a multilevel model to show that school resources do matter. We find that high qualit...

We examine school performance among 83 adolescents at risk for major depression. Negative mood interfered with subjective measures of school performance, including ability to do well in school, homework completion, concentrate in class, interact with peers, and going to class. No significant relationships were found for mood and objective measures of school performance (school attendance, Engli...

This study explores pre-service early childhood teachers’ efficacy for teaching mathematics. Thirty-eight participants completed the short form of the Teacher Efficacy Scale and the Teacher Beliefs Scale before and after they conducted a clinical interview with a child around a mathematical topic. Results indicated a significant increase in Personal Teaching Efficacy as well as significant chan...

Through a state-sponsored Math-Science Partnership (MSP) program, 57 grade 3-5 teachers in six urban districts in northern New Jersey received professional development, classroom support, and mentoring in innovative science and engineering curricula designed to make use of constructivist approaches to teaching and learning. Two universities, a science center, and a teacher education institution...

Geometry as we now understand it was first organized into a systematic whole by Euclid, the great scholar of Alexandria, who wrote his Elements of Geometry [7] around the year 300 B.C. According to the historian Howard Eves [8], “No work, except The Bible, has been more widely used. . . .” The Elements became a central pillar of western thought, studied by everyone seeking a broad education for...

Background: Robot-math is a term used to describe mathematics instruction centered on engineering, particularly robotics. This type of instruction seeks first to make the mathematics skills useful for robotics-centered challenges, and then to help students extend (transfer) those skills. A robot-math intervention was designed to target the proportional reasoning skills of sixththrough eighth-gr...

Teachers are strong role models for their pupils, especially at the beginning of education. This also holds true math: If teachers feel anxious about math, consequences on mathematical education pupils is detrimental. Previous studies have shown that (future) elementary school higher levels math anxiety than most people studying other subjects. Here,...