Mathematics Learning

This article presents a review of important recent themes and developments in research on the learning and teaching of mathematical knowledge and thinking. As a framework, we use a model for designing a powerful environment for learning and teaching mathematics; this model is structured according to four interrelated components, namely competence, learning, intervention, and assessment (CLIA-model) (De Corte. et al., 2004). We argue and illustrate that our empirically based knowledge of each of these four interconnected components has substantially advanced over the past decades, enabling a progressively better understanding of not only the components that constitute a mathematical disposition, but also the nature of the learning and developmental processes that should be induced in students to facilitate the acquisition of competence, the characteristics of learning environments that are powerful in initiating and evoking those processes, and finally, the kind of assessment instruments that are appropriate to help monitor and support learning and teaching. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.edition: 3status: publishe