Education Commons^™

Using L1 Student Narratives And Peer Teaching To Increase Secondary Education Mathematical Understanding, Marco Antonio Martinez Leandro

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

This phenomenological study research presents an option to use both discourse in the native language and technology as an alternative to improve the understanding of mathematics in secondary education. 13 students whose native language is Spanish attended a high school in a large urban school district in the Southwest of the United States, participated in this study.

The study's main objective was to observe the effects of using students' discourse in their language and the support of technology to increase their academic literacy in mathematics. Solution-based pedagogy was central to helping students achieve the Development of Academic Literacy in Mathematics …

Catalyzing Change For Equitable Participation, Liza Bondurant, Seema Rivera

Journal of Practitioner Research

This manuscript discusses the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycles designed to help math teacher-researchers (TRs) create more equitable discourse patterns in their classrooms. Before the first cycle, TRs were asked to complete gender and race implicit assessment tests (IATs). Then, TRs planned and recorded a video of themselves facilitating a math discussion. Next, math teacher educators (MTEs) used the Equity QUantified In Participation (EQUIP) classroom observation instrument to code and analyze the discussion. Subsequently, TRs had an opportunity to reflect on the EQUIP and IAT results and set goals for making their teaching practices more equitable. MTEs provided guidance …

High School Teachers’ Experiences And Perceptions Facilitating Student Discourse And Collaborative Structures For English Language Learners In Biology, Chrissy Ann Brouwer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem that was addressed in this study was that the academic needs of English Language Learners (ELLs) were not being met in biology classes in high schools in the local district because teachers were not consistently facilitating instruction using the required strategies of student discourse and collaborative structures. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore teachers’ successes, challenges, and need for supports when using the required strategies with their ELLs. Knowles’ theory of andragogy and Shulman’s theory of pedagogical content knowledge guided this study examining how the adults’ learning of the required strategies impacted their ability to …

High School Teachers’ Experiences And Perceptions Facilitating Student Discourse And Collaborative Structures For English Language Learners In Biology, Chrissy Ann Brouwer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem that was addressed in this study was that the academic needs of English Language Learners (ELLs) were not being met in biology classes in high schools in the local district because teachers were not consistently facilitating instruction using the required strategies of student discourse and collaborative structures. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore teachers’ successes, challenges, and need for supports when using the required strategies with their ELLs. Knowles’ theory of andragogy and Shulman’s theory of pedagogical content knowledge guided this study examining how the adults’ learning of the required strategies impacted their ability to …

Exploring Teachers’ Beliefs And Practices On Mathematical Discourse For Diverse Students In Inclusive Classrooms, Gloria A. Carcoba Falomir

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The recent implementation of rigorous standards in mathematics education has required shifts in classroom practices. Standards-based instruction places large emphasis on students’ conceptual understanding, requiring them to demonstrate high cognitive levels of mastery of the content through communication of their mathematical reasoning. Teachers and students’ mathematical discursive practices in the classroom can lead to meaningful discussions that integrate students’ explanation, justification, and arguments of ideas or claims and understanding of the content. Research on teachers’ discursive practices has shown that (a) teacher talk tends to dominate classroom instruction and (b) classroom discourse lacks frequent opportunities for teacher-student and peer interactions. …

Math Discourse, Joanie Funderburk

Colorado Mathematics Teacher

Meaningful mathematical discourse can serve to build shared understanding of mathematical ideas.

Virtual Manipulatives: Making Effective Instructional Choices, Katie L. Anderson-Pence

Colorado Mathematics Teacher

This article gives three tips for the effective use of virtual manipulatives in mathematics instruction to promote active engagement and student learning: (1) match the virtual manipulative to the learning target; (2) determine the task to pose to students; and (3) encourage discourse.

Resisting Student Labeling In This Era Of Testing, Richard Kitchen, Michelle Garcia-Olp, Jacklyn Van Ooyik

Colorado Mathematics Teacher

We examined perspectives that prospective elementary teachers (PTs) noticed their mentor teachers held with regards to classifying students by achievement or behavior. Many PTs noticed deficit mathematical discourse and expressed concern about how that could lead students to develop negative views of themselves.

Promoting Class Discourse With Warm-Up Routines, Lisa Bejarano

Colorado Mathematics Teacher

Routines, particularly at the start of class, create predictability and provide an opportunity to experiment with instructional strategies that can enhance the mathematics culture in a classroom. In this article, we explore concrete examples of instructional routines, along with resources and consideration of the values they communicate.

Building Capacity For Academically Productive Talk: The Development Of Teacher Leaders In Science Professional Development, Renee Affolter

Doctoral Dissertations

Despite decades of research on the type of classroom dialogue that supports collaborative student sensemaking and professional development efforts to support such dialogue, opportunities for students to incrementally deepen their understanding of science ideas through engagement in science practices and to engage in complex reasoning and argumentation through classroom talk is limited in most K-12 science classrooms (Driver, Newton, & Osborne, 2000; Lemke, 1990; Michaels, Shouse, & Schweingruber, 2008; Mortimer & Scott, 2003; C. O’Connor, Michaels, & Chapin, 2015; Reinsvold & Cochran, 2011; Scott, Mortimer, & Aguiar, 2006; Weiss, Pasley, Smith., Banilower, and Heck, 2003; Wilson, Schweingruber, & Nielsen, 2015). …

An Examination Of Oral Argumentation Using Socioscientific Issues Among Secondary Students With Disabilities, Mindy A. Gumpert

Communication Disorders & Special Education Theses & Dissertations

The recent science education reforms mandate that all students must receive adequate opportunities to access the science curriculum in order to gain a better understanding of how science and the world works (National Research Council, 2012). According to these reforms, engagement in argumentation is one science practice essential to today’s K-12 science education (Sampson & Clark, 2011). Engagement in argumentation promotes critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills, and has the potential to promote growth of cognitive and metacognitive reasoning (Venville & Dawson, 2010). Additionally, engagement in argumentation using socioscientific issues provides students with authentic links to contemporary real-world social …

Teaching With A Full Deck: Card Sorts, Lindsey Herlehy

Publications & Research

Card sorts tend to make students do the “thing” we value most: talk. Beyond making matches, card sorts provide opportunities for students to classify, rank, sequence, and mind map while setting a natural context for argumentation and use of the claim-evidence-reasoning framework. Join me for a series of card sorts to explore how this easy-to-prep tool will encourage your students to reason and think critically. Math and science resources will be shared.

Resources available below for download include all cards used in the training.

Sliding Into An Equitable Lesson, Kelley E. Buchheister 6872059, Christa Jackson, Cynthia E. Taylor

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

A kindergarten teacher uses Gutierrez's four dimensions of equity to design and facilitate geometry instruction.

Equitable instruction is reflected in how students are positioned in the classroom and how their identities evolve through purposeful interactions that value and recognize the intellectual capacity of each student (Gutiérrez 2013; Lemons-Smith 2008). These integral interactions occur when teachers and students exchange problem-solving strategies, discuss relations among various mathematical representations, and listen to the viewpoints of others (NCTM 2000; 2014).

How Teacher Questions Affect The Development Of A Potential Hybrid Space In A Classroom With Latina/O Students, Casandra Helen Job

Theses and Dissertations

Questions have been shown to aid in student understanding of mathematics, particularly "novel" questions (Mesa, Celis, & Lande, 2013) that do not have a predetermined answer. However, students do not always understand what is intended by questions posed by teachers, particularly those students who come from different cultural and lingual backgrounds than those dominant in the classroom discourse. This project investigated the relationship between how a mathematics teacher acknowledged students funds of knowledge in her questions and how Latina/o students responded. It shows some research based questioning techniques that allow Latina/o students greater opportunity to participate in the mathematical problem-solving …

Deepening Place Value Understanding In K-2 Through Explanation And Justification, Andria Disney, Heidi Eisenreich

Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching and Learning Conference (2017-2019)

This paper seeks to describe the importance of using the context of a candy shop and how focusing on discourse can deepen place value understanding in the base ten number system. Using the language of pieces (ones), rolls (tens), and boxes (hundreds) helps situate place value in a familiar context for K-2 students. Best practice in mathematics instruction is also addressed, including examining the progression of learning for place value concepts, using effective tools to support place value learning, and using explanation and justification to help students deepen their understanding of place value. The authors focus not only on content …

The Perceptions Of Elementary School Teachers Regarding Their Efforts To Help Students Utilize Student-To-Student Discourse In Science, Jennifer Lovejoy Craddock

Educational Studies Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the perceptions of elementary teachers who teach science as opposed to science teacher specialists regarding their efforts to help students use student-to-student discourse for improving science learning. A growing body of research confirms the importance of a) student-to-student discourse for making meaning of science ideas and b) moving students’ conceptual development towards a more scientific understanding of the natural world. Based on those foundations, the three research questions that guided this study examined the value elementary teachers place on student-to-student discourse, the various approaches teachers employ to promote the use of …

Maths Games: A Universal Design Approach To Mathematical Reasoning, Kelley E. Buchheister, Christa Jackson, Cynthia E. Taylor

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

By incorporating math games into the classroom, through the principles of Universal Design teachers are able to address mathematical content, reasoning and problem solving, as well as tailoring games to address students' individual needs.

Mathematics Discourse And Its Relationship To The Development Of Collective And Individual Student Knowledge In The Context Of Limits, Patterson Rogers

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Observing a group discussion, it is not possible to infer an individual student’s understanding from the dialogue. When students discuss, they share their individual ideas to develop a collective understanding which in turn informs students’ individual understanding. Clarifying the relationship between collective and individual understanding provides insight into how individuals construct mathematical thinking. This study presented an embedded case study to answer three questions regarding the role discourse plays in student development of mathematical knowledge: (1) how individual students construct mathematical knowledge through discourse, (2) the nature of discourse which supports the development of mathematical knowledge, and (3) the relationship …

‘When I Am Being Rushed It Slows Down My Brain’: Constructing Self-Understandings As A Mathematics Learner, Rachel Lambert

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Understanding learning disabilities (LDs) as constructed through multiple cultural practices including discourse, this paper focuses on a Latino middle school student with a LD named Elijah. This study documents both the discourses and practices used to position Elijah as a mathematics learner, as well as his use of similar discourses as he constructs a complex set of self-understandings as a mathematics learner. Elijah is positioned by discourses that prioritise speed as an indicator of mathematical ability, as well as discourses that construct students with LD as having both intelligence and differences such as processing speed. An analysis of interview and …

Words Matter: Discourse And Numeracy, Samuel L. Tunstall

Numeracy

Here I discuss elements of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and their importance in relation to quantitative literacy (QL). Through an overview of theory, synthesis of research, and examples, I argue that the discursive nature of textbooks has a nontrivial impact on students' mathematical dispositions - an important component of QL. In particular, texts are a means of disseminating the culture of mathematics, one which has a tendency to paint mathematics as esoteric and male-dominated. Such a characterization has profound implications for the numeracy community, one of which is that we cannot assume that changes in curriculum are sufficient for effecting …

Examining Discourse In A High School Robotic Club, Geeta Verma, Anton Puvirajah, Price Webb

Geeta Verma

Research has shown the importance of discourse in developing deep understandings of science concepts. Science students need to participate in science discourse in which they use social language to facilitate the cultural traditions that constitute a scientific community. When social languages are joined with activities, tools, and values of a group, they become what Gee (2001) calls Discourse (with a capital “D”). We examine high school students’ participation in the cultural tradition, practices of science community, and students’ Discourse enactment of Discourse in an afterschool robotics club. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), we analyzed video recordings of discourse, semi-structured interviews, …

Searching For Answers When Girls Don't Perform Well: Evaluating Classroom Discourse And Microculture In A Sixth Grade Science Classroom, Lauren E. Schwartz

Theses and Dissertations--Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education

This action research project examines the role classroom culture and discourse can play on student learning, with a focus on female students. A sixth grade science classroom was evaluated through analysis of two videotaped astronomy lessons. The classroom environment utilized qualitative methods to examine teacher and student interactions, student and student interactions, and classroom environment. The research project began in response to a previous research project which found that after completing an astronomy unit male students not only out preformed female students, but female students lost gains in several area. Findings suggested that there may be a connection between the …

Mathematical Telling In The Context Of Teacher Interventions With Collaborative Groups, Brandon Kyle Singleton

Theses and Dissertations

Teacher telling is underrepresented in the mathematics education reform literature and deserves additional scrutiny. This case study examined a skilled teacher's telling practices during a university mathematics content course for pre-service elementary teachers. I identified telling practices through discourse analysis, attending to the presence of mathematics and the contribution of new structure or ideas from the teacher. The teacher utilized seven unique types of mathematical telling while supporting collaborative group work on tasks. The study identified subtle telling, implicit telling, and explicit telling. The results suggest that mathematical telling is an integral part of the teacher's role in inquiry-based instruction …

Chemistry Graduate Teaching Assistants: A Comparison Of The Classroom Discourse Within Expository And Problem-Based Learning Laboratories, Kelley M. Current

Masters Theses

Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) commonly function as instructors within undergraduate chemistry laboratories. This study sought to explore and describe GTA classroom discourse within two distinct instructional modes, using discourse analysis as the theoretical framework. Theclassroom discourse within a series of verification style labs was comparedto the classroom discourse produced within a set of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) labs. The results suggest three primary findings: (1) the apparent relationship between the instructional mode and form of GTA classroom discourse, (2) the patterns in classroom discourse observed within a given instructional mode repeat, irrespective of content, and (3) the classroom discourse observed within …

Types Of Questions That Comprise A Teacher's Questioning Discourse In A Conceptually-Oriented Classroom, Keilani Stolk

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines teacher questioning with the purpose of identifying what types of mathematical questions are being modeled by the teacher. Teacher questioning is important because it is the major source of mathematical questioning discourse from which students can learn and copy. Teacher mathematical questioning discourse in a conceptually-oriented classroom is important to study because it is helpful to promote student understanding and may be useful for students to adopt in their own mathematical questioning discourse. This study focuses on the types of questions that comprise the mathematical questioning discourse of a university teacher in a conceptually-oriented mathematics classroom for …

A Case Study Exploring The Relationship Between Culturally Responsive Teaching And A Mathematical Practice Of The Common Core State Standards, Tashana Howse

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This collective case study explores the nature of the relationship between teachers’ use of culturally responsive teaching (CRT) practices and students’ engagement in constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others (SMP3). This study was informed by the Common Core State Standards Initiative related to developing mathematically proficient students through the use of student engagement practices consistent with the standards for mathematical practice. As a means to support teachers’ facilitating specific student engagement practices, professional development was provided. This study is situated in the growing body of research associated with student engagement and cultural identity. The case of two …

Elements Of Proximal Formative Assessment In Learners’ Discourse About Energy, Benedikt W. Harrer, Rachel E. Scherr, Michael C. Wittmann, Hunter G. Close, Brian W. Frank

Faculty Publications

Proximal formative assessment, the just-in-time elicitation of students' ideas that informs ongoing instruction, is usually associated with the instructor in a formal classroom setting. However, the elicitation, assessment, and subsequent instruction that characterize proximal formative assessment are also seen in discourse among peers. We present a case in which secondary teachers in a professional development course at SPU are discussing energy flow in refrigerators. In this episode, a peer is invited to share her thinking (elicitation). Her idea that refrigerators move heat from a relatively cold compartment to a hotter environment is inappropriately judged as incorrect (assessment). The "instruction" (peer …

Framing In Cognitive Clinical Interviews About Intuitive Science Knowledge: Dynamic Student Understandings Of The Discourse Interaction, Rosemary S. Russ, Victor R. Lee, Bruce L. Sherin

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Researchers in the science education community make extensive use of cognitive clinical interviews as windows into student knowledge and thinking. Despite our familiarity with the interviews, there has been very limited research addressing the ways that students understand these interactions. In this work we examine students’ behaviors and speech patterns in a set of clinical interviews about chemistry for evidence of their tacit understandings and underlying expectations about the activity in which they are engaged. We draw on the construct of framing from anthropology and sociolinguistics and identify clusters of behaviors that indicate that students may alternatively frame the interview …

Probing Space: Formative Assessment In A Middle School Inquiry-Based Science Classroom, Clinton W. Anderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This action research thesis was performed to explore the research questions: How did the use of formative assessment affect student performance data in understanding the concepts of the Sun-Earth-Moon system?, How did the use of learning scales as formative techniques impact student self-assessment of their knowledge of the Sun-Earth-Moon system?, How did the implementation of formative assessment techniques affect student discourse on the topic of the Sun-Earth-Moon system? Formative assessment techniques including "talk-friendly" probes, sticky bars, and agree-disagree statements were used in the classroom to expose gaps in knowledge, to facilitate discourse, and promote self-assessment. A triangulation of data included …

Elements Of Proximal Formative Assessment In Learners’ Discourse About Energy, Benedikt W. Harrer, Rachel E. Scherr, Michael C. Wittmann, Hunter G. Close, Brian W. Frank

Benedikt W. Harrer

Proximal formative assessment, the just-in-time elicitation of students' ideas that informs ongoing instruction, is usually associated with the instructor in a formal classroom setting. However, the elicitation, assessment, and subsequent instruction that characterize proximal formative assessment are also seen in discourse among peers. We present a case in which secondary teachers in a professional development course at SPU are discussing energy flow in refrigerators. In this episode, a peer is invited to share her thinking (elicitation). Her idea that refrigerators move heat from a relatively cold compartment to a hotter environment is inappropriately judged as incorrect (assessment). The "instruction" (peer …