Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Secondary Math Teachers’ Responses To Errors In The Classroom, Richie Vicinanza

Honors College Theses

This study was conducted in an effort to find out how modern-day secondary math teachers respond to errors in their classrooms and the reasonings behind their responses. To fulfill the purpose of this study, various methods of research were used to gather information. Methods included looking into the scholarly sources surrounding the topic as well as a primary-conducted study in the field. Participants of this study were high school math teachers. The participants engaged in two semi-structured interviews (an initial and a debrief) as well as an observation that was conducted during one of their classes. Through the initial interview, …

Acer’S Mathematics Anxiety And Engagement Strategy (Maes): A Framework, Sarah Buckley, Kate Reid, Catherine Pearn, Shani Sniedze

Student learning processes

The Mathematics Anxiety and Engagement Strategy (MAES) was established by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) in 2018 in response to declining mathematics achievement and participation among Australian students. Findings from the 2022 cycle of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) show that 15-year-old students in Australia had significantly lower levels of mathematical literacy than students in 2003 (De Bortoli et al, 2023). The 2022 results also showed that male students outperformed female students and only 30 percent of students from more disadvantaged backgrounds achieved the National Proficient Standard in mathematics compared to 72 percent of students from …

Family-Centered Theory Of Change: A Conceptual Framework For Improving Teaching And Learning In Undergraduate Stem Courses, Juan Salinas, Parwinder Grewal, Jose J. Gutierrez, Nicolas A. Pereyra, Dagoberto Ramirez, Elizabeth Salinas, Griselda Salinas, Virginia Santanas, Can Saygin

School of Integrative Biological and Chemical Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) are often characterized as Hispanic enrolling (rather than serving) that practice deficit-based systems that continue to marginalize Latinx and other underrepresented students, especially in STEM fields. Extant research on HSIs stresses the importance of investigating the value of grassroots advocacy groups as external influencers of institutional servingness through deeper engagement with the Latinx community. Using a novel family-centered theory of change that addresses diversity, equity, and inclusion, we integrated intersectionality and servingness into a family-integrated education serving and transforming academic framework. We investigated the potential transformational impact of this framework on students, families, faculty, and administrators at …

Building Connections: The Power Of Embedding Literacy And Math Content Into Science And Social Studies Contexts, Rachel Hallett-Njuguna Edd

Constellations: Online STEM Teacher Education Journal

Nationally, the lack of improvement in literacy scores continues to baffle experts. Instructional leaders from math, science, and social studies in one district knew the value of leveraging their subject areas to support literacy achievement in secondary students. Starting with an engaging STEM-related novel, the group of curriculum experts developed meaningful literacy connected tasks for their teacher and teacher leader participants. Working through the activities as their students would, the group found a new appreciation for the importance of leveraging the relevance of science and social studies content and the usefulness of math content when creating literacy lessons. The group’s …

Table Of Contents

Early College Folio

(2023) "Table of Contents," Early College Folio: Vol. 3: Iss. 1, Article 1. Available at: https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/earlycollegefolio/vol3/iss1/1

Place-Based Education: A Pedagogy Of Community

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

Every place, no matter how seemingly mundane or described as ‘exotic,’ has a story—a human story involving culture (history, language, migration, etc.); a natural story involving land and water, plants and animals, and other natural phenomena; and a story that combines the two—humans in the natural space and their impact on that space. The degree to which we know the story of a place informs our connection to that place, be it positive, negative, or neutral. The incorporation of these stories—the cultural, historical, and ecological stories of a place—into school curricula is known as place-based education (PBE) and is the …

“It’S Just Lines”: A Qualitative Analysis Of Emergent Structures And Experiences Within Steam Education Initiatives For Secondary-Level Students, John O'Meara

LASER Journal

This qualitative analysis is oriented around the experiences and discourse of high school students participating in LASER (Linking Art and Science through Education and Research), an initiative at Montclair State University in Montclair, NJ that seeks mathematics and physics education reform through an immersive and innovative approach to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) experiences. This work focuses on the concluding task of a one-day workshop wherein students are led on a campus walk to observe the local campus architecture, and then must recreate one of the observed structures within the Desmos graphing utility. Student approaches and narratives reveal …

Polygon Quadrature And Dodecagonal Tessellation With Pattern Blocks, Gunhan Caglayan, Ben Kamau

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

The age-old challenge of polygon quadrature involves converting a polygon into a square of equal area. In this educational resource, we utilize pattern blocks, commonly employed instructional aids in K-12 education across the United States, to visually demonstrate the transformation of different equilateral and regular pattern block polygons into squares. This is achieved through the application of the area conservation principle and geometric congruence/similarity reasoning.

Seating Groups And 'What A Coincidence!': Mathematics In The Making And How It Gets Presented, Peter J. Rowlett

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Mathematics is often presented as a neatly polished finished product, yet its development is messy and often full of mis-steps that could have been avoided with hindsight. An experience with a puzzle illustrates this conflict. The puzzle asks for the probability that a group of four and a group of two are seated adjacently within a hundred seats, and is solved using combinatorics techniques.

Undergraduate Mathematics Students Question And Critique Society Through Mathematical Modeling, Will Tidwell, Amy Bennett

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Mathematics can be used as a tool to question and critique society and, in doing so, give us more information about the world around us and how it operates. This however, is not a common perspective that is conveyed to students during their undergraduate mathematics coursework. This paper contributes to the understanding of how undergraduate mathematics students question and critique society via mathematical modeling tasks. In two courses at two universities, 27 mathematics majors and secondary preservice teachers engaged in the modeling process situated in authentic contexts to learn specific concepts and make mathematical connections across domains and disciplines. Both …

Sharing Four Biscuits Between Three People: An Illustrative Example Of How Mathematics Is Intertwined With Human Values, Lovisa Sumpter, David Sumpter

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Despite convincing arguments by mathematicians, philosophers, sociologists and machine learning practitioners to the contrary, there remains a widespread notion amongst many members of the general public (and some practitioners) that mathematics is neutral, that it is free from human values. One reason why this notion persists is that we lack clear-cut examples that demonstrate how mathematics and values are intertwined. In this paper, we offer one such example. In particular, we show that when sharing four biscuits between three people, several possible mathematical and ethical frameworks can be used. We demonstrate that different solutions—hiding one biscuit, arbitrarily sharing the extra …

Gödel's Theorem In The Continuing Education Of Mathematics Teachers, Ana J. Lemes

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

The notion of dépaysement épistémologique (epistemological disorientation) aims to capture the sense of disorientation when a learner is led to question their prior assumptions and understandings, generating uncertainty in a context in which they thought they had certain knowledge. This article describes an activity used with a group of practicing mathematics teachers in Uruguay that integrates elements of the history of mathematics related to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, with the aim of provoking in the participants the experience of dépaysement épistémologique. Results show that several of the teachers participating in the activity felt dépaysement épistémologique, and this feeling triggered …

Finding Your Mathematical Roots: Inclusion And Identity Development In Mathematics, Linda Mcguire

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This paper details a semester-long course project that has been successfully adapted for use in mathematics courses ranging from introductory level, general-education classes to advanced courses in the mathematics major. Through creating aspirational mathematical family trees and writing mathematical autobiographies, this assignment is designed to help battle belonging uncertainty, to challenge students to self-situate in relation to the history of mathematical and scientific knowledge, and to make visible a student’s developing identity in mathematics and, more broadly, in STEM.

The construction and scaffolding of the project, assignments, examples of student work, foundational readings, assessment and outcomes, and adaptation strategies for …

Numeracy Tasks: Inspiring Transfer Between Concrete And Abstract Thinking Spaces, Taras Gula, Miroslav Lovric

Numeracy

In our paper we build a case for conceptualizing numeracy tasks as distinct from mathematical tasks (or at least as a special type of mathematical task), and for abstraction and interpretation as a set of key activities necessary for designating a numeracy task as being high-quality. We start with an attempt to tame the fuzziness of numeracy and its family members (including quantitative reasoning, quantitative literacy, mathematical literacy, and the word problem cousins) by outlining six areas of consensus gleaned from literature. These provide the foundation for a core mandate of numeracy. We then build our case for the distinctness …

The Effectiveness Of An Educational Program In Developing Mathematical Achievement As Well As Developing Productive Struggle Among Students Of Intermediate Stage, Ibrahim A. Khalil Ph.D.

International Journal for Research in Education

This study aimed to identify the effectiveness of an educational program in developing Mathematical Achievement and productive struggle among students of intermediate stage. To fulfil its goals the study used the quasi-experimental approach, based on the design of two equivalent groups. It also used the Teacher's Guide - an activity booklet as study material, in addition to the use of two tools to collect data. One of them is an achievement test that included (three levels of mathematical knowledge related to equation and inequalities) and the other is a productive struggle scale (divided into three axes). The study sample consisted …

Easy, Bright, Fluorescence Demonstration Of Buffer Action, Mariana Dykstra, Yejin Chung, Mark Muyskens

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

We report an attractive update to the demonstration of acid–base buffer action that is appropriate for ease of use and getting attention in the classroom. The twist is based on new fluorophore information and the recent availability of UV flashlights serving as an ideal, portable excitation light source. The pH-dependent fluorescence comes from a choice among three natural sources, namely narra tree wood extract, kidneywood extract, and scopoletin, which is a purchasable coumarin, that all perform equally well. We provide practical details for performing the buffer demonstration at scales of 100 and 1000 mL and give background information for context.

“That Cross-Curricular Business”: The Engineering Design Process In Mathematics And Science Classrooms, Eugenia Vomvoridi-Ivanovic, Tonisha B. Lane, Leia K. Cain, Salam Ahmad, Selene Willis, Jonathan E. Gaines

The Qualitative Report

The engineering design process (EDP) is one tool teachers can use to facilitate STEM integration. As part of a larger three-year longitudinal research project regarding engineering identity development among middle school youth in a summer robotics outreach program, this study aims to understand teachers’ willingness to incorporate engineering design in their classrooms through an exploration of their perceptions of the EDP, its applications to their subject matter and classroom context, methods of enacting the EDP, and perceived challenges to and supports for doing so. We conducted a qualitative case study and drew our results from focus groups and semi-structured interviews …

Special Issue On Public Policy: Front Matter

CODEE Journal

The Front Matter contains the Editor-in-Chief's Foreword, a Dedicatory by Associate Editor Douglas Meade, a Preface by the Special Editors Bev West and Samer Habre, and the Table of Contents.

Full Issue - Engaging The World: Differential Equations Can Influence Public Policies

CODEE Journal

This is the full issue (front matter and all papers) of the Third CODEE Special Issue, with the theme, "Engaging the World: Differential Equations can Influence Public Policies."

Seeing Eye To Eye? Comparing Faculty And Student Perceptions Of Biomolecular Visualization Assessments, Josh T. Beckham, Daniel R. Dries, Bonnie L. Hall, Rarchel M. Mitton-Fry, Shelly Engelman, Charmita Burch, Roderico Acevedo, Pamela S. Mertz, Didem Vardar-Ulu, Swati Agrawal, Kristin M. Fox, Shane Austin, Margaret A. Franzen, Henry V. Jakubowski, Walter R. P. Novak, Rebecca Roberts, Alberto I. Roca, Kristen Procko

Chemistry Faculty Publications

While visual literacy has been identified as a foundational skill in life science education, there are many challenges in teaching and assessing biomolecular visualization skills. Among these are the lack of consensus about what constitutes competence and limited understanding of student and instructor perceptions of visual literacy tasks. In this study, we administered a set of biomolecular visualization assessments, developed as part of the BioMolViz project, to both students and instructors at multiple institutions and compared their perceptions of task difficulty. We then analyzed our findings using a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative analysis was used to answer the following research questions: …