“Because, It’s Kind Of: Lower Achieving Elementary Students’ Participation in Problem-Based Mathematics
Researchers tend to agree that mid- to high-performing children benefit from instruction that emphasizes solving and discussing non-routine problems. When it comes to children who struggle, however, there is sharp disagreement and differing recommendations regarding how to teach them. Sometimes caught in a vicious cycle that requires that they know something before using it to solve problems, struggling students are taught basic skills and little else. This disconnect is evidenced in those children who have been required to memorize the multiplication tables, for example, but cannot use these facts to solve non-routine problems involving multiplicative situations…
To read more, download this paper, presented at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Research Presession, in St. Louis, as part of the symposium “Connecting Discourse, Teaching, and Curriculum.” Paper by Susan Empson, Erin Turner, Higinio Dominguez, and Luz Maldonado, April 2006.
Other papers presented in this symposium:
Teachers’ Negotiation of ‘the presence of the text’: How Might Teachers’ Language Choices Influence the Positioning of the Textbook? by Beth Herbel-Eisenmann, Iowa State University.
Difficulties with Scaling Up Reform: A Situated View of the Challenges of Transforming Classroom Discourse, by Jeffrey Choppin, University of Rochester
Tracing the Evolution of Pedagogical Content Knowledge as the Development of Interanimated Discourses, by Jennifer R. Seymour, Iowa State University and Rich Lehrer, Vanderbilt University.
Supporting Whole-Class Collaborative Inquiry in a Secondary Mathematics Classroom, by Megan Staples, University of Connecticut.
Developing Mathematics Students’ Critical Language Awareness, by David Wagner, University of New Brunswick, Canada
Posted in Presentations, Research, Uncategorized | Comments (0)
Facilitating English Language Learners Participation in Mathematical Discussion and Problem Solving
A central tenet of the mathematics education reform movement is that mathematical discourse practices such as explaining thinking, conjecturing, analyzing strategies, and justifying solutions are essential component of what it means to do and learn mathematics… There is a paucity of research, however, focusing on English Language Learners’ (ELL) participation in these practices. At a time when 1 in 10 students is classified as an ELL (U.S. Department of Education, 2004), and 42% of all public school teachers have at least one limited English proficient (LEP) student in their classroom (U.S. Department of Education, 2003), we see this as a critical void in the literature….
To read more, download this conference paper, presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco, by Erin Turner, Higinio Dominguez, Luz Maldonado, and Susan Empson, April 2006. [Note: later version of paper uploaded May 2006]
Posted in Presentations, Research, Uncategorized | Comments (0)