Education Commons^™

Connecting Advanced And Secondary Mathematics, Eileen Murray, Erin Baldinger, Nicholas Wasserman, Shawn Broderick, Diana White

Department of Mathematics Facuty Scholarship and Creative Works

There is an ongoing debate among scholars in understanding what mathematical knowledge secondary teachers should have in order to provide effective instruction. We explore connections between advanced and secondary mathematics as an entry point into this debate. In many cases, advanced mathematics is considered relevant for secondary teachers simply because the content is inherently related. In this paper, we instead argue that there are connections between advanced mathematics and secondary mathematics that directly influence teaching. These are not discussions of the mathematical connections, per se, but rather discussions of specific ways in which knowing mathematical connections might influence secondary teachers’ …

Using Mobile Technology To Increase The Math Achievement And Engagement Of Students With Disabilities, Dominique Marie Tetzlaff

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The advent of advanced technologies provides new opportunities for delivering instruction to students with disabilities. Many classrooms have access to mobile devices, such as iPads and Kindles, and educators utilize these devices to differentiate instruction and augment teacher-led instruction. This delivery method, known as blended learning, can create an enriched learning environment where students are exposed to individualized lessons that are self-paced and provide multiple modes of presentation. However, there is little empirical investigation into how students interact with digital devices or what components of online learning directly impact student learning and engagement with the content. In order to design …

Curricular Change Agenda For Failure-Experienced Mathematics Students: Can Success-Promoting Assessment Make A Difference?, Ron Tzur, Nitsa Movshovitz-Hadar

Ron Tzur

The study reported in this paper addressed the question: Can a success promoting assessment schema (SPAS) be designed so as to have a positive impact on mathematics learning of failure-experienced students? Addressing the problem of the study is important because assessment of students' mathematics learning greatly impacts the way mathematics is taught and learned in schools (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1995). Learning mathematics is essential for one's functioning in today's society, and it is considered desirable that all students know and use mathematics (For Good Measure, 1992; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1989). However, these goals are …

Riding The Mathematical Merry-Go-Round To Foster Conceptual Understanding Of Angle, Ron Tzur, Matthew Clark

Ron Tzur

This article presents playful activities for fostering students' conceptual understanding of angle--a root concept in mathematics--that revolve around the Mathematical Merry-Go-Round game. The authors focus on activities for two reasons. On one hand, NCTM's Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000) stresses the central role of student activity in coming to understand mathematics. This emphasis is consistent with a constructivist stance (Piaget 1971) about learning as an active process. On the other hand, typical activities used for teaching angle, in which an introduction of the definition is followed by operations on angles, such as measuring, adding, comparing, and classifying, seem …

From Theory To Practice: Explaining Successful And Unsuccessful Teaching Activities (Case Of Fractions), Ron Tzur

Ron Tzur

In a teaching experiment, I examined a theoretical model of mathematics teaching and learning in practice. In this paper I focus on how the model can guide the teacher's thinking about students' understandings and the generation of activities that foster intended transformations in those understandings. As a research-teacher I taught, twice a week for four months, basic ideas of fractions to 28 third graders, in a public school in Israel. The analysis of both classroom data and researcher's documented reflections indicates how the model can empower the generation and explanation of successful teaching activities, as well as thinking about and …

Integrating Reading Into Mathematics Instruction, Meredith Eby

Honors College Theses

Reading is not often thought of as a topic that affects mathematics, but it is a reality for low-level reader students. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how teachers describe the relationship between mathematics and literacy skills, and to explore specific methods mathematics teachers used to accommodate low-level readers in their mathematics instruction. Participants were six teachers from a rural elementary school. Data was collected through recorded interviews and supplemental email questions that were coded. The data gathered showed that teachers use literacy in mathematics classrooms through word problems and mathematics stories. The most common accommodation was …

The Effects Of A Varied Method Of Instruction On Student Achievement, Transfer, Situational Interest, And Course Retention Rates In Community College Developmental Mathematics, Kevin L. Mccandless

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to compare the effects of a varied method of instruction on student achievement, knowledge transfer, situational interest, and course retention rates, relative to a non-varied method of instruction, in community college developmental mathematics. The varied method of instruction consisted of active learning teaching practices with foundations in social constructivism, whereas the non-varied method of instruction was founded in Cognitive Load Theory and consisted primarily of explicit instruction and individual practice.

An initial sample of 139 students who enrolled in six sections of Beginning Algebra at an urban community college in Northern California participated …