of the constructivist view of learning. His classes frequently work in small groups to solve problems presented in written form, Figure 3.3 shows one example. Students are to work on developing a formula for finding the area of trapezoid Notice that the initial questions bring the requisite ideas needed for the task to the students' conscious level. Next they are asked to do some exploration and look for patterns From these explorations the group must come up with a formula, test it, describe how it was developed and illustrate its use. The task requires a lot of reflective thinking on the part of the students. They have one another to brainstorm with, and the teacher is there to listen and to provide hints, en- couragement, and suggestions. Tsuruda(1994) reports that every group was able to produce a formula. "Not all the for- mulas looked like the typical textbook formula, but they were all correct, and more important, each formula made sense according to the way the students in that group had constructed the khowledge from the data they themselves had generated" (p. 6).