List of Contents

August 2010

Editorial

Using workbooks in classrooms – an old-fashioned approach to teaching
Uma N. Iyer

Proofs which are not proofs
Richard O’Donovan

A Comparison of Two Alternative Pathway to Mathematics Programs Teacher Certification: Teacher Quality in the New York City Teaching Fellows and Teach for America Programs
Brian R. Evans

Teaching-Research classroom inquiry into the negation of statements with single quantifiers
Bronislaw Czarnocha

Applications in Unusual Contexts in Engineering Mathematics: Students’ Attitudes
Norbert Gruenwald, Gabriele Sauerbier, Ajit Narayanan, Sergiy Klymchuk, Tatyana Zverkova

Reports from the field

Explanations of the Concept Map Arithmetic-Algebra-Functions. Creativity-Literacy-Numeracy Connectedness
Vrunda Prabhu

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Editorial

We have been out of circulation for a long time due to the illness of the editor. However, we have prepared a new interesting issue of MTRJ on line, which contains several different views on mathematics education.

Problem solving in the basic courses of mathematics and science has become the issue of the day. We include the full report from the Problem Solving seminar organized in the Spring of 2010 and involving two departments Department of Mathematics and the Department of Natural Sciences at Hostos CC. It has been interesting to observe the differences and similarities as to what Problem Solving means in different subjects. Editorial team strongly suggests looking over this part of the issue, thoughtfully enjoying the different presentations, and contributing your own.

The current issue of the journal includes also general considerations of O’Donovan on the weakness of a certain popular proof technique in calculus and analysis, which points out to the extreme need for properly understood assumptions. We continue with the paper of Evans comparing the two alternative pathways to mathematics teacher certification: New York City Teaching Fellows (NYGTF) and Teaching For America (ATF). Findings revealed that there were no differences between Teaching Fellows and TFA teachers in mathematics content knowledge, attitudes toward mathematics, and concepts of self-efficacy. The differences lie in the number of times the term ”social justice” was more present in the classes of TFA classrooms.

The Teaching-Research aspect of our journal is discussed in three papers by Iyer Czarnocha and Klymchuk, which analyze different aspects of students performance motivation and misconceptions. The section of Reports From the Field follows this discussion, where we find an interesting concept map of the integrated course of Arithmetic, Algebra and functions prepared by Prabhu.