ABSTRACT

All state standards use some type of schema-based framework for story problems. A schema is a way of organizing word problems by type. There has been a great deal of research on the effectiveness of schema-based word problems in teaching and learning. One of the most informative professional development books to teach schema-based problem solving is Children's Mathematics: Cognitively Guided Instruction. The research from the book frames problem solving around getting students to understand the different problems conceptually, so that they can reason, use efficient strategies and have procedural fluency. After students have mastered solving one-step problems, they start working on two-step problems and then multi-step problems. There is still a leveled hierarchy that is often neglected. Schema-based problem solving is a framework that is used to teach word problems. Many educators did not learn word problems from this framework and need to take the time to understand it so that they can better teach them.