Motivation and disposition : pathways to learning mathematics

Teaching mathematics is a much broader endeavor than simply helping students to acquire skills and problem-solving strategies. Teachers also strive to develop motivation and positive dispositions toward studying mathematics-aspects that will have long-term effects on everything from students' confidence to do mathematics to their career choices. Each lesson in a mathematics classroom should take into account students' motivation level and dispositions and have as a goal the development of these affective characteristics.

Explore a wide variety of perspectives on motivation and disposition as these concepts relate to mathematics teaching and learning. NCTM's seventy-third yearbook examines such elements as the demographic composition of a school; the role of movies, television and the Internet; and nontraditional pedagogy as means of promoting and influencing positive student and teacher dispositions. Motivation and disposition can arise from diverse sources and many factors can magnify-or diminish-both. The presence or lace of curiosity, ambition, parental influence, teacher encouragement, peer pressure and future goals-these and other elements play central roles. Against these realities, cumbersome rhetoric is less effective than concrete ideas for implementation-this book offers a perspective to the reader that reinforces action.