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This study examined U.S. and Chinese 6th-grade students' mathematical thinking and reasoning involved in solving 6 process-constrained and 6 process-open problems. The Chinese sample (from Guiyang, Guizhou) had a significantly higher mean score than the U.S. sample (from Milwaukee, Wisconsin) on the process-constrained tasks, but the sample of U.S. students had a significantly higher mean score than the sample of the Chinese students on the process-open tasks. A qualitative analysis of students' responses was conducted to understand the mathematical thinking and reasoning involved in solving these problems. The qualitative results indicate that the Chinese sample preferred to use routine algorithms and symbolic representations, whereas the U.S. sample preferred to use concrete visual representations. Such a qualitative analysis of students' responses provided insights into U.S. and Chinese students' mathematical thinking, thereby facilitating interpretation of the cross-national differences in solving the process-constrained and process-open problems.

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This study examined U.S. and Chinese teachers' constructing, knowing, and evaluating representations to teach mathematics. All Chinese lesson plans are very similar, because they are all based on the Chinese national unified curriculum in mathematics. However, the U.S. lesson plans are extremely varied, even for those teachers from the same school. The Chinese teachers' lessons are very detailed; the U.S. teachers' lesson plans have exclusively adopted the "outline and worksheet" format. In the Chinese lesson plans, concrete representations are used exclusively to mediate students' understanding of the concept of average. In U.S. lessons, concrete representations are not only used to model the averaging processes to foster students' understanding of the concept, but they are also used to generate data. The U.S. teachers are much more likely than the Chinese teachers to predict drawing and guess-and-check strategies. For some problems, the Chinese teachers are much more likely than are the U.S. teachers to predict algebraic approaches. For the responses using conventional strategies, both the U.S. and Chinese teachers gave them high and almost identical scores. If a response involved a drawing or an estimate of an answer, the Chinese teachers usually gave a relatively lower score, even though the strategy is appropriate for the correct answer, because it is less generalizable. This study contributed to our understanding of the cross-national differences between U.S. and Chinese students' mathematical thinking. It also contributed to our understanding about teachers' beliefs from a cross-cultural perspective.Cross-national studies provide unique opportunities for us to understand issues of the teaching and learning of mathematics and then to provide diagnostic and deci- MATHEMATICAL THINKING AND LEARNING, 7(2),

This chapter synthesizes the current state of knowledge in problemposing research and suggests questions and directions for future study. We discuss ten questions representing rich areas for problem-posing research: (a) Why is problem posing important in school mathematics? (b) Are teachers and students capable of posing important mathematical problems? (c) Can students and teachers be effectively trained to pose high-quality problems? (d) What do we know about the cognitive processes of problem posing? (e) How are problem-posing skills related to problem-solving skills? (f) Is it feasible to use problem posing as a measure of creativity and mathematical learning outcomes? (g) How are problem-posing activities included in mathematics curricula? (h) What does a classroom look like when students engage in problem-posing activities? (i) How can technology be used in problem-posing activities? (j) What do we know about the impact of engaging in problem-posing activities on student outcomes?

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