Knowing_and_Teaching_Elementary_Mathemat (1)

Knowing and Teaching
Elementary Mathematics
Anniversary Edition
“Both sides in the math wars claim Dr. Ma as their own. This book’s broad appeal offers some
hope for common ground in math education…. We will continue fights over whether children
should be taught arithmetic rules or theory. What Dr. Ma shows is that we need both.”
—New York Times
“Liping Ma’s work has given me hope about what can be done to improve mathematics
education.”
—Richard Askey, Professor of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin-Madison
“A stealth hit for math junkies on both sides of the ‘math wars’, and a must read for anyone
interested in solving the problems of public schools.”
—Christian Science Monitor
“This book supports the need for, and indeed the educational benefits of, changing professional
teaching conditions for U.S. teachers.… It provides some food for thought for everyone
involved in improving mathematics education. And it supports the necessity that even
at the elementary school level, students can, and should, learn challenging mathematics.”
—National Council of Teachers of Mathematics News Bulletin
Studies of teachers in the United States often document insufficient subject matter knowledge
in mathematics. Yet, these studies give few examples of the knowledge teachers need
to support teaching, particularly the kind of teaching demanded by recent reforms in mathematics
education. Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics describes the nature
and development of the knowledge that elementary teachers need to become accomplished
mathematics teachers, and suggests why such knowledge seems more common in China
than in the United States, despite the fact that Chinese teachers have less formal education
than their U.S. counterparts.
The anniversary edition of this bestselling volume includes the original studies that
compare U.S. and Chinese elementary school teachers’ mathematical understanding and
offers a powerful framework for grasping the mathematical content necessary to understand
and develop the thinking of school children. Highlighting notable changes in the field
and the author’s work, this new edition includes an updated preface, introduction, and key
journal articles that frame and contextualize this seminal work.
Liping Ma earned a Ph.D. from Stanford University, following a masters degree in education
from East China Normal University. After a term as a senior scientist at the Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, she is now an independent scholar.