Mathematics for Elementary School Teachers, 7th Edition

Tom Bassarear, Meg Moss

Copyright 2020
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Mathematics for Elementary School Teachers 7th Edition by Tom Bassarear/Meg Moss

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Overview
Meet the Authors
What's New
Features
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Overview

MATHEMATICS FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS, 7th Edition, offers an engaging, hands-on, exploratory experience to help future elementary school teachers develop conceptual and deep understanding of the math concepts they will be teaching, as well as to nurture their positive beliefs and attitudes about math. Intended for the one-, two-, three- or four-semester mathematics course required of Elementary Education majors, the 7th edition demonstrates that there are many paths to solving a problem, and sometimes problems have more than one solution. Authors Bassarear and Moss present real-world problems in a way that requires active learning in a method similar to how archaeologists work in the field: they carefully uncover the concepts, slowly revealing more and more of the structure. An emphasis on explorations and investigations helps students make sense of the concepts, which are developed through a concrete/contextual and pictorial approach to understand the more abstract concepts. Students learn both the necessary mathematics and how to teach to young children. Available with WebAssign, a flexible and fully customizable online instructional solution that enables instructors to instantly assess student and class performance, and helps students master the course concepts.

Meet the Authors

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Tom Bassarear

Tom Bassarear is a professor at Keene State College in New Hampshire. He received his BA from Claremont-McKenna College, his MA from Claremont Graduate School, and was awarded an Ed.D degree from the University of Massachusetts. Tom's complementary degrees in mathematics and educational psychology have strongly influenced his convictions about education--specifically, mathematics education. Before teaching at the college level, he taught both middle school and high school mathematics. Since arriving at Keene State College, Tom has spent many hours in elementary classrooms observing teachers and working with them in school and workshop settings, plus, he has taught 4th grade math every day for a semester at a local elementary school.

Meg Moss

Meg Moss began teaching the mathematics for elementary school teachers course over 25 years ago. In her first full-time teaching position at Treasure Valley Community College, she was given a traditional textbook for the Math for Elementary Educators and told that there wasn’t much to these classes, just to go through the text. This started her on a 25 year journey of exploration and research on how best to teach these courses. Her dissertation was entitled "Specialized Understanding of Mathematics: A Study of Prospective Elementary School Teachers." She led a project to create Math for Elementary School Teachers (as well as science courses) and, as a result, Pellissippi State Community College won the award of "Best Practices in Math and Science Education at the Community College level." She has presented at international and domestic conferences and served as consultant to several universities in improving the math preparation of elementary teachers. She is currently serving as a faculty development leader at Western Governors University and exploring the competency-based model and how to create engaging interactive math learning in an online environment. She also teaches Math for Elementary Education courses face to face at area universities. She obtained her M.A. in Math Education from Appalachian State University and her Ph.D. in Math Teacher Education from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She has taught high school and has spent a considerable amount of time volunteering and supporting student teachers in elementary schools.

What's New

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Chapters 2-4 are now operation centered instead of number centered. This helps students to more clearly see the relationships between the number sets and the operations. Chapter 2 explores the different number sets, Chapter 3 investigates addition and subtraction of all the number sets, and Chapter 4 delves into multiplication and division of all the number sets including fractions.
Virtual manipulatives and conceptual questions have been created in WebAssign to help students prepare for teaching math in their future classrooms.
Because the problem solving in Chapter 1 can be overwhelming for some students to begin with, many of the problem-solving investigations have been integrated into the rest of the book in the appropriate chapter where that topic is explored. This shortened Chapter 1 enables students to dive into numbers and operations sooner. All of the investigations are still in the text, and new ones have been added.
More focus is given in developing concepts through a variety of concrete, pictorial, and abstract approaches throughout the book.
Sideboxes such as "History," "Language," and "Mathematics" have been integrated into the main text or eliminated to minimize distractions and create a smoother reading experience for students.
The Explorations, open-ended activities for students to practice and use as models for teaching in their own classrooms, are now available for free both in WebAssign and on the Student Companion Website.

Features

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An emphasis on "owning" knowledge versus "renting" is promoted by a constructionist approach to learning, where connections are reinforced, and problems are authentic so that students retain what they have learned. By participating in investigations, the students are doing the mathematics themselves.
Investigations serve as the primary means of instruction and are uniquely designed to promote active thinking, reasoning, and construction of knowledge. Many investigations are followed by multiple solving strategies, allowing students to analyze numerous approaches to solving problems. Likewise, questions appear throughout the text, to prompt students to reflect or complete a short exercise before continuing.
Throughout the text, Classroom Connections are highlighted to provide observations, tips, and notes about elementary and middle school classrooms. Students can see children's thinking through examples of children's work and actual lessons from elementary-age and middle-school class assignments and practice exercises.
The book teaches students to add, subtract, and multiply in base 5, so that they better understand our number system, but more importantly understand the difficulties that young children have learning those operations.
Teaching through an exploratory pedagogy is made easier through the investigations in the text and the free explorations available online.

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Preface.
1. FOUNDATIONS FOR LEARNING MATH.
What Is Mathematics? Sets. Questions to Summarize Big Ideas. Chapter 1 Summary. Chapter 1 Review Exercises.
2. THE NUMBER SYSTEM.
Whole Numbers. Fractions. Decimals, Integers and Real Numbers. Questions to Summarize Big Ideas. Chapter 2 Summary. Chapter 2 Review Exercises.
3. UNDERSTANDING ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION.
Understanding Addition of Whole Numbers. Understanding Subtraction of Whole Numbers. Understanding Addition and Subtraction of Fractions. Understanding Addition and Subtraction of Decimals and Integers.
Questions to Summarize Big Ideas. Chapter 3 Summary. Chapter 3 Review Exercises.
4. UNDERSTANDING MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION.
Understanding Multiplication of Whole Numbers. Understanding Division of Whole Numbers. Understanding Multiplication and Division of Fractions. Understanding Multiplication and Division of Decimals and Integers. Questions to Summarize Big Ideas. Chapter 4 Summary. Chapter 4 Review Exercises.
5. PROPORTIONAL REASONING.
Ratio and Proportion. Percents. Questions to Summarize Big Ideas. Chapter 5 Summary. Chapter 5 Review Exercises.
6. ALGEBRAIC THINKING.
Understanding Patterns, Relations, and Functions. Representing and Analyzing Mathematical Situations and Structures Using Algebraic Symbols. Using Mathematical Models to Represent and Understand Quantitative Relationships. Analyzing Change in Various Contexts. Questions to Summarize Big Ideas. Chapter 6 Summary. Chapter 6 Review Exercises.
7. UNDERSTANDING STATISTICS AND PROBABILITY
Collecting, Organizing, and Displaying Data. Analyzing Data. Using Data to Make Predictions. Understanding Probability. Questions to Summarize Big Ideas. Chapter 7 Summary. Chapter 7 Review Exercises.
8. GEOMETRY AS SHAPE.
Building Blocks. Two-Dimensional Figures. Three-Dimensional Figures. Questions to Summarize Big Ideas. Chapter 8 Summary. Chapter 8 Review Exercises.
9. GEOMETRY AS MEASUREMENT.
Systems of Measurement. Perimeter and Area. Surface Area and Volume. Looking Back on Chapter 9. Chapter 9 Summary. Chapter 9 Review Exercises.
10. GEOMETRY AS TRANSFORMING SHAPES.
Congruence Transformations. Symmetry and Tessellations. Similarity. Questions to Summarize Big Ideas. Chapter 10 Summary. Chapter 10 Review Exercises.
Appendix A: Selected Answers.
Appendix B: Answers to Questions in Text.
Endnotes.
Photo Credits.
Index.