How is the syntax of algebra developed and why is it important to understand? What do related studies about memory span tell us about practicing?
Many students do not understand the meaning of "=". How might a lack of understanding of equality affect their long-term mathematical abilities.
Why might algebra students make inconsistent errors (rather than a consistent pattern of bugs)?
What is problem translation and solution? What are the four types of statements found in most word problems and how does problem translation relate to those statements?
In what part of a word problems to students make the most errors and why do they err?
What are schema? How are they developed and why are they important to algebra? Please reference Morales et al's study.
What are the problems with the "means-ends heuristic"?
Why might failure to understand arithmetic affect a student's understanding of algebra?
What is distributed practice and how is it related to forgetting curves? Describe the study of longer-term benefits of distributed practice administered by Bahrick and Hall (1991) using algebra and geometry tests.
Why are diagrams an especially effective heuristic?
If anything here is unclear, ask Amy(amyz) or Josh (jwheless).
-- Edited by psyforum on Friday 8th of October 2010 02:33:17 PM
