Education Commons^™

Introduction To Contemporary Mathematics Syllabus (Spring 2023), Heather Nunnally

Open and Affordable Course Content at VCU

Syllabus for MATH 311: Introduction to Contemporary Mathematics in Spring 2023. Includes a course schedule, grading policies, course objectives, and inclusiveness statement.

Wikipedia As An Experiential Learning Activity In Media Courses, Melony Shemberger

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

Many internet users often consult Wikipedia to read a quick reference on a subject, but the source tends to be viewed as unreliable by the academic community. Nevertheless, journalism and public relations courses can help improve Wikipedia. Four undergraduate courses — News Editing, In-depth Reporting, Sports Media, and Research Methods in Public Relations — in a journalism and mass communications department at a regional, four-year university in the southeast of the United States incorporated Wikipedia. This article discusses the benefits, considerations, and challenges that an instructor might experience when using Wikipedia.

Innovation In Preservice Teacher Preparation: Undergraduate Research In Special Education, Kymberly Harris, Meca Williams-Johnson, Dana Sparkman

Department of Curriculum, Foundations, & Reading Faculty Publications

Teacher preparation programs emphasize the connection between student outcomes in achievement and behavior, but the framework of teachers as researchers is rarely presented as a foundational basis of good instruction. Teachers are aware of the need to consider scores and trends and alter their instruction based on the response of the students to their teaching, but the techniques involved are not explicitly taught as research methods in most preparation programs.

The initial purpose of including a research course in the undergraduate program of study was to provide preservice teachers with research skills to enhance their instruction. The long term goal …

Theory, Ethics And Equity In Intra-Action In Mathematics Education: Looking Forward, Looking Back, Susan Ophelia Cannon

Middle and Secondary Education Faculty Publications

This paper considers the intra-actions between poststructural theories and mathematics education over the last 40 years and considers how these theories have resulted in different ways to think students, teachers, and knowledge production. I argue that thinking in intra-action with various and different theories can allow us to ask different questions and radically rethink school mathematics.

Theory In Mathematics Education: Intra-Action And (Re)Configuration, Susan Ophelia Cannon

Middle and Secondary Education Faculty Publications

Using (post) qualitative methodology located within a critical postmodern theoretical frame, I will examine the intersection(s) and borders of the field of mathematics education and the posts (post-structural, new materialist, post-humanist, post-qualitative). The “field” in this research will be considered a fluid space that shifts and responds as “new” research is brought into it. The research questions that guide this study are: 1. What are the taken for granted, expectations and norms of these spaces? 2. How are post theories being used/taken up within mathematics education? 3. How are the borders and boundaries of the field of mathematics education shifting …

“Theory At The Crossroads”: Mapping Moments Of Mathematics Education Research Onto Paradigms Of Inquiry, David W. Stinson, Margaret Walshaw

Middle and Secondary Education Faculty Publications

In this essay, traveling through the past half-century, the authors illustrate how mathematics education research shifted, theoretical, beyond its psychological and mathematical roots. Mapping four historical moments of mathematics education research onto broader paradigms of inquiry, the authors make a case for the field to take up a theoretical “identity” that refutes closure and keeps the possibilities of mathematics teaching and learning open to multiple and uncertain interpretations and analyses.

The Role Of Theory In Quantitative Data Analysis, Terri D. Pigott

Education: School of Education Faculty Publications and Other Works

If you take theory and models seriously, then (a) you need to elaborate clearly for yourself ‘what counts’ and how things supposedly fit together, and (b) you must hold yourself accountable to data.… From my perspective, theory is – or should be – the lifeblood of the empirical scientist. (Schoenfeld, 2010, p. 105)

The process of theorizing, collecting evidence, testing theory, revising theory, and then working through the cycle again is the basis of science. Theory is no less important when conducting a data analysis using quantitative methods. All statistical textbooks spend significant space on discussing the assumptions of statistical …

Questions Of Truth: Ethical And Moral Wanderings In Middle Grades Mathematics Classrooms And Research, Susan Ophelia Cannon, Stephanie Behm Cross

Middle and Secondary Education Faculty Publications

This paper describes two researchers engagement with two teachers as they taught a middle grades mathematics course, Current Events Math, in a large urban school district. The researchers share bits of data and their ethical entanglements as they entered into the site to find the truth about what works in middle grades mathematics classrooms only to realize that truth cannot be found through research. They then grappled with the question of the purpose of research and their roles as researchers in the school and the academy.

Leveraging Different Perspectives To Explore Student Thinking About Integer Addition And Subtraction, Nicole Enzinger, Laura Bofferding

Faculty Publications - College of Education

This is the third meeting of a working group on student thinking about integers. The main goal of this working group includes utilizing different theoretical perspectives and methodologies in small groups to design complementary studies, where student thinking about integer addition and subtraction will be explored. This working group aims to provide a space for participants to capitalize on their differences in theoretical perspectives and methodologies to promote productive scholarly discussion about the same research topic, student thinking about integer addition and subtraction. Participants will actively engage in work that progresses towards these studies, with the intent to develop a …

Critical Postmodern Methodology In Mathematics Education Research: Promoting Another Way Of Thinking And Looking, David W. Stinson, Erika C. Bullock

Middle and Secondary Education Faculty Publications

Mathematics education research over the past half century can be understood as operating in four distinct yet overlapping and simultaneously operating historical moments: the process–product moment (1970s–), the interpretivist–constructivist moment (1980s–), the social-turn moment (mid 1980s–), and the sociopolitical-turn moment (2000s–). Each moment embraces unique theoretical perspectives as it critiques or rejects others. And given that methodology is inextricably linked to theory, each moment calls forth not only different theoretical possibilities but also different methodological possibilities. In this article, the authors briefly discuss and critique the methodologies that are “traditionally” found in each moment and explore some of the methodological …

Broadening What We Perceive: A Method For Analyzing Gesture And Language, Caro C. Williams-Pierce

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Scholarship

Gesture and language are deeply intertwined, and attending to both simultaneously when examining mathematical processes is a complex yet rewarding task. We share our budding research methodology for analyzing gesture and language and discuss the methodology from a generic perspective that can be easily adapted to different contexts, participants, and mathematical domains. We further share our problem-specific gesture coding scheme as an example of the grain size and foci of such schemes. Finally, we close by discussing the importance of gesture and language to understanding mathematical justifications and proofs.

Faculty Success: Developing A Research And Publication Agenda, Kathleen P. King

Leadership, Counseling, Adult, Career and Higher Education Faculty Publications

Anyone associated with higher education will acknowledge that tenure track faculty have to perform a fantastic balancing act. Compared to an administrative or line role in an organization, higher education faculty have tremendous autonomy and freedom. However, they face competing demands of many different (and good) opportunities, and for them the stakes are always high. Help is here! This article introduces a powerful strategy for staying on track in the research strand of this competitive journey.

Harnessing Innovative Technologies In Higher Education: Access, Equity, Policy & Instruction, Kathleen P. King, Joan K. Griggs

Leadership, Counseling, Adult, Career and Higher Education Faculty Publications

This publication is an attempt to capture the evolution of distributed higher education over the last decade by tracing the applications of new technologies funded by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). As FIPSE surveyed the current state of distance/distributed education, there existed an opportunity to help post econdary education make the transition to this new generation of distance education made possible by the explosive growth of the Internet and other new technologies. These technologies created the potential for students to access learning that was interactive, customized, and self-paced; to more easily merge lifelong learning with the …