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Full-Text Articles in Education

Academic And Peer Status In The Mathematical Life Stories Of Students, Carol Ann Wise Nov 2015

Academic And Peer Status In The Mathematical Life Stories Of Students, Carol Ann Wise

Theses and Dissertations

Mathematics students often define themselves by their grades, test scores, how they compare to other people, how comfortable they feel in mathematics class, and so on. These experiences are all part of a student's mathematical life story. Students assume positions with particular rights and duties for themselves and for the actors in the stories they tell. Those positions reflect certain types and levels of status. Those types and levels of status have been shown to either inhibit or open a student's access to learning mathematics. Thus, a student's status in mathematics education is an issue of equity. Mathematics educators and …


Facilitating Changes In College Teaching Practices: Instructional Reform, Identity Conflict And Professional Community In A K-20 Partnership, Stacy Olitsky Oct 2015

Facilitating Changes In College Teaching Practices: Instructional Reform, Identity Conflict And Professional Community In A K-20 Partnership, Stacy Olitsky

Stacy Olitsky

In this paper, I explain variation in the adoption of student-centred teaching practices among college faculty members in a program designed to promote K-20 instructional reform. I analyze data from a qualitative study of a Math and Science Partnership in order to understand why some faculty members had undergone extensive changes to their practices whereas others had not, even though both groups had demonstrated changes in their beliefs. Findings show that when collective identities focused on reform become more salient than the role identities associated with their teaching positions, faculty members are able to persist through the loss of self-efficacy …


Student Evaluation Of Mathematical Explanations In Aninquiry-Based Mathematics Classroom, Ashley Burgess Hulet Aug 2015

Student Evaluation Of Mathematical Explanations In Aninquiry-Based Mathematics Classroom, Ashley Burgess Hulet

Theses and Dissertations

Students do not always evaluate explanations based on the mathematics despite their teacher's effort to be the guide-on-the-side and delegate evaluation to the students. This case study examined how the use of three features of the Discourse—authority, sociomathematical norms, and classroom mathematical practices—impacted students' evaluation and contributed to students' failure to evaluate. By studying three pre-service elementary school students' evaluation methods, it was found that the students applied different types of each of the features of the Discourse and employed them at different times. The way that the features of the Discourse were used contributed to some of the difficulties …


Secondary Mathematics Teachers’ Attitudes And Beliefs Toward Statistics: Developing An Initial Profile, Christina M. Zumbrun Jun 2015

Secondary Mathematics Teachers’ Attitudes And Beliefs Toward Statistics: Developing An Initial Profile, Christina M. Zumbrun

Dissertations

Over the last several decades, mathematics education researchers have given increased attention to students’ and teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward mathematics and statistics, but no work has been done that examines practicing secondary mathematics teachers’ (SMTs’) attitudes and beliefs towards statistics in light of the GAISE framework and the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM). This study begins to address this gap in the research by creating the Teacher Attitude and Beliefs toward Statistics Survey (TABSS), a synthesis of items taken from the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (Schau, 2003), the Statistics Course Attitude Scale and newly developed items …


Recommendations For Teachers And Researchers: Supporting Female Learners Of Secondary Mathematics: A Review Of Literature, Lauren Ashley Watts May 2015

Recommendations For Teachers And Researchers: Supporting Female Learners Of Secondary Mathematics: A Review Of Literature, Lauren Ashley Watts

Masters Theses

This literature review is intended to collect recommendations for practices in secondary education that promote gender equity in math and science. A brief overview of the history of gender and gender equity in mathematics, science and related fields will be provided, along with an examination of current aspects of gender equity in science and math that remain to be addressed. Recommendations for practices of secondary mathematics teachers that promote gender equity will be given with reference to practice theory and situated learning.


Mathematics For What? High School Students Reflect On Mathematics As A Tool For Social Inquiry, Anastasia Brelias Apr 2015

Mathematics For What? High School Students Reflect On Mathematics As A Tool For Social Inquiry, Anastasia Brelias

Democracy and Education

This study examines high school students’ views of mathematics as a tool for social inquiry in light of their classroom experiences using mathematics to explore social issues. A critical theoretical perspective on mathematics literacy is used to ascertain the ways in which their views challenge or affirm the dominant image of mathematics in society. The study concludes that mathematics applications addressing social justice issues are promising vehicles for developing students’ appreciation of mathematics as a social problem-solving tool, an awareness of its limitations, and a healthy skepticism toward its uses.


Changing The Culture: Developing Creative Problem Solvers, Eric L. Mann Apr 2015

Changing The Culture: Developing Creative Problem Solvers, Eric L. Mann

Faculty Presentations

Mathematics embraces creativity and beauty yet often our children are immersed in classroom activities where these attributes are hidden by an overemphasis on algorithms, computational speed and known answers that can be found in the back of the book or with a quick Google search. This learning environment creates a false perception of what it means to be “good at math.” From the research we know than many of our elementary school teachers have negative attitudes towards mathematics; an attitude students pick up and adopt which may foster the development of the reluctant, impatient problem solvers we find in our …


Precalculus Students' Achievement When Learning Functions: Influences Of Opportunity To Learn And Technology From A University Of Chicago School Mathematics Project Study, Laura A. Hauser Mar 2015

Precalculus Students' Achievement When Learning Functions: Influences Of Opportunity To Learn And Technology From A University Of Chicago School Mathematics Project Study, Laura A. Hauser

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The concept of function is one of the essential topics in the teaching and learning of secondary mathematics because of the central and unifying role it plays within secondary and college level mathematics. Organizations, such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, suggest students should be able to make connections across multiple representations of mathematical functions by the time they complete high school. Despite the prominent role functions play in secondary mathematics curriculum, students continue to struggle with the complex notion of functions and especially have difficulty using the different representations that are inherent to functions (algebraic, graphical and …


Parents And The Common Core State Standards For Mathematics, Rebecca Anne Roberts Mar 2015

Parents And The Common Core State Standards For Mathematics, Rebecca Anne Roberts

Theses and Dissertations

As the majority of the nation has adopted Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM), studying parents' resistance to these standards becomes vital in improving parental involvement and support of school mathematics reforms. Using Schoenfeld's (2011) model for decision making as a framework, an online survey and six interviews were conducted. The results of the survey showed that parents' resources related to student experiences and the mathematical methods students are performing are affecting their resistance toward CCSSM. The survey results also showed that parents' orientations related to the difficulty of the standards and politics affects their resistance toward CCSSM. The …


Success After Failure: Academic Effects And Psychological Implications Of Early Universal Algebra Policies, Keith Howard, Martin Romero, Allison Scott, Derrick Saddler Jan 2015

Success After Failure: Academic Effects And Psychological Implications Of Early Universal Algebra Policies, Keith Howard, Martin Romero, Allison Scott, Derrick Saddler

Education Faculty Articles and Research

In this article, the authors use the High School Longitudinal Study 2009 (HSLS:09) national database to analyze the relationships between algebra failure, subsequent performance, motivation, and college readiness. Students who failed eighth-grade Algebra I did not differ significantly in mathematics proficiency from those who passed lower-level courses, but initially demonstrated significantly lower mathematics interest, mathematics utility, and mathematics identity. Both groups were less likely than the general population to meet college requirements in the eleventh grade, although students who passed a lower-level mathematics course fared better than those who failed Algebra I. Implications for policies addressing mathematics course enrollments are …


The Last Word, Irene Loewenson Jan 2015

The Last Word, Irene Loewenson

Progressive Education in Context

A graduate of the Bank Street School for Children explains her love of math and the projects she created while a student in the School.


What Is Equity? Ways Of Seeing, Christa Jackson, Cynthia Taylor, Kelley Buchheister Jan 2015

What Is Equity? Ways Of Seeing, Christa Jackson, Cynthia Taylor, Kelley Buchheister

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

Prospective teachers must be prepared for their role in providing equitable access for learning high quality mathematics. Therefore, it is imperative that mathematics teacher educators provide opportunities to develop an equity-centered orientation in teacher preparation courses. In this study, we begin to address this issue by identifying what prospective teachers attend to in a classroom vignette of an African American male student who is above grade level in mathematics and exhibits disruptive behavior during instruction. The results of the study indicate that while participants are beginning to attend to cultural influences, most responses are focused on classroom management strategies


I Know How To Add Them, I Didn't Know I Had To Add Them, Jyoti R. Jhagroo Jan 2015

I Know How To Add Them, I Didn't Know I Had To Add Them, Jyoti R. Jhagroo

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Abstract: Ten non-English speaking immigrant students shared their lived experiences in their secondary school mathematics classrooms in New Zealand. Through the voices of these students some understandings of the challenges they experienced as second language learners are brought to the fore. The students’ perspectives of the language-related challenges that they faced, how they made sense of learning in an environment where the medium of instruction was dissimilar to their first language, and the impact that language-related challenges may have had on their perceptions of their ability in their new environment compared to their home country, form the basis of this …