Teaching Mathematics - Brent Davis

This book presents an approach to the teaching of mathematics that departs radically from conventional prescription-oriented and management-based methods. It brings together recent developments in such diverse fields as continental and pragmatist philosophy, enactivist thought, critical discourses, cognitive theory, evolution, ecology, and mathematics, and challenges the assumptions that permeate much of mathematics teaching. The discussion focuses on the language used to frame the role of the teacher and is developed around the commonsense distinctions drawn between thought and action, subject and object, individual and collective, fact and fiction, teacher and student, and classroom tasks and real life. The discussion also addresses the question of how mathematics teaching can be reformed to better suit current academic and social climates. Making use of the theoretical framework of enactivism, the book explores the subject through an account of a middle school teacher's appreciation and understanding of her role. Teaching mathematics, as both the report of this teacher's experience and the discussion make clear, demands an embracing of ambiguity, uncertainty, complexity, and moral responsibility. Courses for Adoption
Education: Mathematics for Elementary Teachers, Methods for Teaching Elementary Schools, Methods for Teaching Secondary Schools, Curriculum Studies, Critical Pedagogy Special Features *Elucidates the importance and relationship between theory and practice. Employs reflective teaching techniques to focus students on their own learning, knowledge, and understanding of mathematics.Details a collaborative venture that traces the development of new thinking and insights about math teaching and learning. *A fine blending of theory with practice.

"This book is a work of art, an essay that engages the reader in an experience that goes beyond the intellectual processing of ideas.
Davis uses language as does a poet, to affect the reader, to effect a change in the reader's experience of the subject matter, and of him or herself in that subject matter." -- J. Curriculum Studies
"Learning and expressing through sight are often predominant in our thinking, and I believe that paying more attention to sound, to listening, to hearing can open our ears to a whole new pedagogical approach to mathematics and, indeed, to other subjects.
I believe Brent Davis, through this book, has done that." -- Harvard Educational Review
"It would benefit all educators interested in curriculum studies and instructional pedagogy. I recommend this book to all educators who are caught up in what they are doing and have forgotten to really listen to their students." -- Teaching Children Mathematics