A Mathematical Passage: Strategies for Promoting Inquiry in Grades 4-6

If you're searching for practical answers to the challenge of inquiry while meeting the demands of covering the curriculum, look no further than A Mathematical Passage.

In this book, classroom teacher Robin Cox and university professor David Whitin tell how they devised strategies and activities to nurture the same kind of initiative, voice, and ownership in mathematics that children display in writing their own stories and choosing their own books to read. They offer a wealth of information for teachers who want to make a similar kind of passage toward inquiry in mathematics. Here you will find:

• lesson plans that outline mathematical content and strategies, as well as important attitudes and dispositions
• specific connections to NCTM's Principles and Standards for School Mathematics
• detailed descriptions of ways to build a community of mathematical inquirers
• strategies for developing and managing a math workshop
• suggestions for encouraging children to be independent, responsible, and reflective decision makers
• ways to use math journals to assess children's understandings
• activities that promote interdisciplinary connections
• strategies for using conversation to challenge, clarify, justify, and extend mathematical thinking
• tips on communicating with parents
• references to manipulatives, children's literature, and real-world applications
• parallels between the work of children and the work of mathematicians, such as discovering patterns, developing hypotheses, posing and extending problems.

Better understand the nature of inquiry learning. Nurture its growth in your own classroom. See how key principles of learning are consistent across the curriculum. Read Whitin and Cox.

David J. Whitin is a Professor of Elementary Education at Wayne State University, where he teaches courses in mathematics education and elementary school curriculum. David has been an elementary school principal and teacher.

David has a Baccalaureate degree from Princeton University, a master's degree from Boston University, an M.A.T. from the University of New Hampshire, and a doctorate in elementary education from Indiana University.

David's presentations are lively and interactive. He involves teachers themselves in a variety of experiences so that they have the opportunity to reflect on their own learning. He shares numerous samples of children's work to demonstrate how teachers have enacted these beliefs about learning in creative ways. He has frequently spoken for such groups as NCTE, NCTM, IRA and many groups nationally and internationally.

Robin W. Cox is a Regional Literacy Coach with the South Carolina Reading Initiative. She has taught fifth and first grade, as well as mathematics education courses at the University of South Carolina. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in elementary education with a focus on inquiry.