Making Sense of Mathematics: Children Sharing and Comparing Solutions to Challenging Problems

Problem solving is consistently ranked as one of the most difficult skills to teach. Making Sense of Mathematics explores problem solving from both the teacher's and the students' perspectives, studying how children answer challenging questions while helping teachers learn the art of questioning. The book includes a careful study of students' acquisition of problem-solving processes, and delineates seven stages of students' development as problem solvers. It gives special attention to non-paper-and-pencil problems, an important area for learning real-world applications of problem solving. Ten chapters explore the benefits of multi-age classrooms, instructional approaches to teaching and practicing problem solving, and other areas that affect how children become expert problem solvers.