In our efforts to reform mathematics education, we've learned a tremendous amount about young students' strategies and the ways they construct knowledge, without fully understanding how to support such development over time. The Dutch do. So, funded by the National Science Foundation and ExxonMobil, Mathematics in the City was begun, a collaborative inservice project that pooled the best thinking from both countries. In Young Mathematicians at Work, Catherine Fosnot and Maarten Dolk reveal what they learned after several years of intensive study in numerous urban classrooms.

In this third volume in a series of three, Fosnot and Dolk focus on how children in grades 5-8 construct their knowledge of fractions, decimals, and percents. Their book:

• describes and illustrates what it means to do and learn mathematics.
• contrasts word problems with true problematic situations which support and enhance investigation and inquiry.
• provides strategies to help teachers turn their classrooms into math workshops.
• explores the cultural and historical development of fractions, decimals, and their equivalents and the ways in which children develop similar ideas and strategies.
• defines and gives examples of modeling, noting the importance of context.
• discusses calculation using number sense and the role of algorithms in computation instruction.
• describes how to strengthen performance and portfolio assessment.
• focuses on teachers as learners by encouraging them to see themselves as mathematicians.

Mathematics in the City was a collaborative inservice project that pooled the best thinking from the US and the Netherlands on the teaching of mathematics. This book reveals insights from the project and provides strategies to help teachers turn their classrooms into math workshops. Fosnot is professor of education at the City College of New York and director of Mathematics in the City, the inservice project described in this book. Dolk is a researcher and developer of mathematics education at the Freudenthal Institute in the Netherlands.
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In this third volume in a series of three, Fosnot and Dolk focus on how children in grades 58 construct their knowledge of fractions, decimals, and percents.

In our efforts to reform mathematics education, we've learned a tremendous amount about young students' strategies and the ways they construct knowledge, without fully understanding how to support such development over time. The Dutch do. So, funded by the National Science Foundation and ExxonMobil, Mathematics in the City was begun, a collaborative inservice project that pooled the best thinking from both countries. In Young Mathematicians at Work, Catherine Fosnot and Maarten Dolk reveal what they learned after several years of intensive study in numerous urban classrooms. In this third volume in a series of three, Fosnot and Dolk focus on how children in grades 5-8 construct their knowledge of fractions, decimals, and percents. Their book: describes and illustrates what it means to do and learn mathematics. contrasts word problems with true problematic situations which support and enhance investigation and inquiry. provides strategies to help teachers turn their classrooms into math

CATHERINE TWOMEY FOSNOT is Professor of Education at The City College of the City of New York and Director of Mathematics in the City. She twice has won the "best writing" award from AERA's Constructivist SIG and she was the recipient of the "young scholar" award by Educational Communication and Technology Journal . She is an author of several books on mathematics education, most recently, the Young Mathematicians at Work series.MAARTEN DOLK is a researcher and developer of mathematics education at the Freudenthal Institute in the Netherlands, where he has been involved in the development of professional materials for teachers and for student teachers. He also has directed an inservice project in the Netherlands for teacher educators and staff developers. His work in the United States is related to the inservice of primary school teachers. He is the coauthor of the Young Mathematicians at Work series.