Chapter 7: Classroom Research Informs Measure Up: A Different Look at Elementary Mathematics

Students are busy pouring water to compare volumes, cutting strips to compare lengths, and using a balance scale to compare masses. They are writing statements on the board and in their notebooks to describe the relationships they find. One student writes:

The students in this class are first graders at the Education Laboratory School (ELS), a charter school with curriculum research and development as its primary purpose located at the University of Hawaii’s Curriculum Research & Development Group (CRDG).

Elementary students in this school are part of research cohorts involved in Measure Up (MU), an elementary mathematics project undertaken by the Mathematics Section of the CRDG. This chapter describes the work and experiences of three researcher-teachers of the MU project team during the first year of this project. We write about the changes in our understandings about mathematics and its instruction as we experience mathematics through a different lens.