Mathematics for Elementary School Teachers

The first and only text of its kind, Mathematics for Elementary School Teachers, 2/e, offers a comprehensive, content approach designed to foster hands-on, discovery-based mathematics instruction. The unique two-volume format, featuring a text plus Explorations Manual, continues to model a constructivist/discovery approach to teaching and learning. Students first encounter new concepts through hands-on activities in the Explorations Manual, enabling them to construct their own understanding of the material. The text then serves as a resource for further investigation, explanation, and clarification.

Unlike most texts, which present exercises very similar to examples, Bassarear demonstrates how real-life problems are generally complex and often filled with ambiguity and that non-routine and multistep problems are the norm. Students learn that there may be more than one way to find an answer and even more than one answer.

• A special 16-page insert includes actual pages from Houghton Mifflin's best-selling K-6 basal series, demonstrating material currently used in the classroom.
• Bassarear supports his big picture approach by weaving six big ideas throughout the text: 1) functions, 2) composition-decomposition, 3) conventions, 4) proportional reasoning, 5) units, and 6) multiplicity.