In this article, we explore Terry Wood’s participation in the Purdue Problem-Centered Mathematics Curriculum Project, along with the rich and enduring personal and professional friendships that she built with the classroom teachers who were so important to the project. We highlight connections between these working relationships and the research publications that resulted from the project. The contributions of classroom teachers, Graceann Merkel and Janell Uerkwitz are evident in several of the papers published by Terry and the other researchers, including Erna Yackel, Paul Cobb and others. The testimonies and personal stories that each of these teachers shared during and following the May 2021 Terry Wood Memorial Event provide an enhanced picture of her contributions to their teaching practice and professional lives. As such, we gain insights into the reciprocal relationships and learning that occurs between education researchers and their partner classroom teachers.

Para que as criancas aprendam, e importante que lhes sejam dadas oportunidades para expressar e clarificar o seu pensamento pessoal, e tambem para ouvir e tomar em consideracao as ideias matematicas dos outros. Por isso, um aspecto importante do ensino e a criacao de um ambiente em que a partilha de pensamentos pessoais e a aceitacao de perguntas de outros acerca das proprias ideias exista de uma forma harmoniosa. Isto e claramente que um desafio para muitos professores.

Over the past five years, we have collaborated with teachers to develop forms of instructional practice in elementary chool mathematics that are compatible with a constructivist view of teaching and learning. Two key aspects of our work form the basis for this discu ion: first, the process of developing in tructional activities, and second. the importance of engaging students in mathematical discussion.

Our ongoing project involves twenty-three second-gradc teachers who are teaching all their mathematics, including computation, through mallgroup problem solving and wholeclas discusion. Typically the children first work on problem-centered mathematical activities in pair or occasionally in group of three. During this phase of the lesson, the teacher moves from group to group, observing and interacting with the children while they do mathematics. After fifteen or twenty minutes, the teacher asks the children to stop working and begins a whole-class di scussion of their solution to the problems.