ABSTRACT
In this chapter we explore the question of how children learn mathematics from classroom instruction. Although we know a great deal from a cognitive-psychological perspective about how children’s mathematical knowledge develops over the elementary school years (Carpenter, Moser, & Romberg, 1982; Ginsburg, 1983); and although we know a fair amount from the field of educational research about how mathematics is taught in elementary school classrooms (Brophy & Good, 1986; Dunkin & Biddle, 1974), we know very little about the mechanisms by which teaching and learning are related. Indeed, despite the now predominant view that children construct knowledge—as opposed to merely receiving it— from their environment; and despite the fact that much of this process, at least in the industrialized world, must surely go on inside classrooms, we know almost nothing about how children construct knowledge during classroom instruction, that is, about the processes by which a child builds meaning from classroom activities.
