Classroom Practice

Lessons From a Co-design Team on Supporting Student Motivation in Middle School Science Classrooms

Decades of motivation research have yielded a set of Motivation Design Principles (MDPs) that can be leveraged to support the development of student motivation and engagement in the classroom. This article addresses the translation of these guiding principles to teacher professional learning and subsequently, classroom practice.

Author/Presenter

Jennifer A. Schmidt

Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia

Christopher J. Harris

David McKinney

Pei Pei Liu

Year
2021
Short Description

Drawing from published literature, as well as the experiences of a co-design team of motivation and science education researchers and middle school science teachers, we address the landscape of decision points for designing and implementing professional learning focused on supporting middle school students’ motivation in science.

Lessons From a Co-design Team on Supporting Student Motivation in Middle School Science Classrooms

Decades of motivation research have yielded a set of Motivation Design Principles (MDPs) that can be leveraged to support the development of student motivation and engagement in the classroom. This article addresses the translation of these guiding principles to teacher professional learning and subsequently, classroom practice.

Author/Presenter

Jennifer A. Schmidt

Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia

Christopher J. Harris

David McKinney

Pei Pei Liu

Year
2021
Short Description

Drawing from published literature, as well as the experiences of a co-design team of motivation and science education researchers and middle school science teachers, we address the landscape of decision points for designing and implementing professional learning focused on supporting middle school students’ motivation in science.

Establishing Student Mathematical Thinking as an Object of Class Discussion

Productive use of student mathematical thinking is a critical yet incompletely understood dimension of effective teaching practice. We have previously conceptualized the teaching practice of building on student mathematical thinking and the four elements that comprise it. In this paper we begin to unpack this complex practice by looking closely at its first element, establish.

Author/Presenter

Keith R. Leatham

Laura R. Van Zoest

Ben Freeburn

Blake E. Peterson

Shari L. Stockero

Year
2021
Short Description

Productive use of student mathematical thinking is a critical yet incompletely understood dimension of effective teaching practice. We have previously conceptualized the teaching practice of building on student mathematical thinking and the four elements that comprise it. In this paper we begin to unpack this complex practice by looking closely at its first element, establish. Based on an analysis of secondary mathematics teachers’ enactments of building, we describe two critical aspects of establish—establish precision and establish an object—and the actions teachers take in association with these aspects.

Establishing Student Mathematical Thinking as an Object of Class Discussion

Productive use of student mathematical thinking is a critical yet incompletely understood dimension of effective teaching practice. We have previously conceptualized the teaching practice of building on student mathematical thinking and the four elements that comprise it. In this paper we begin to unpack this complex practice by looking closely at its first element, establish.

Author/Presenter

Keith R. Leatham

Laura R. Van Zoest

Ben Freeburn

Blake E. Peterson

Shari L. Stockero

Year
2021
Short Description

Productive use of student mathematical thinking is a critical yet incompletely understood dimension of effective teaching practice. We have previously conceptualized the teaching practice of building on student mathematical thinking and the four elements that comprise it. In this paper we begin to unpack this complex practice by looking closely at its first element, establish. Based on an analysis of secondary mathematics teachers’ enactments of building, we describe two critical aspects of establish—establish precision and establish an object—and the actions teachers take in association with these aspects.

Establishing Student Mathematical Thinking as an Object of Class Discussion

Productive use of student mathematical thinking is a critical yet incompletely understood dimension of effective teaching practice. We have previously conceptualized the teaching practice of building on student mathematical thinking and the four elements that comprise it. In this paper we begin to unpack this complex practice by looking closely at its first element, establish.

Author/Presenter

Keith R. Leatham

Laura R. Van Zoest

Ben Freeburn

Blake E. Peterson

Shari L. Stockero

Year
2021
Short Description

Productive use of student mathematical thinking is a critical yet incompletely understood dimension of effective teaching practice. We have previously conceptualized the teaching practice of building on student mathematical thinking and the four elements that comprise it. In this paper we begin to unpack this complex practice by looking closely at its first element, establish. Based on an analysis of secondary mathematics teachers’ enactments of building, we describe two critical aspects of establish—establish precision and establish an object—and the actions teachers take in association with these aspects.

Secondary Mathematics Teachers’ Use of Students’ Incorrect Answers in Supporting Collective Argumentation

This study illustrates how two secondary mathematics teachers used students’ incorrect answers as they supported students’ engagement in collective argumentation. Three ways of supporting argumentation when students contributed incorrect answers are exemplified, and the structures of these arguments are investigated. Then, by focusing on the correctness of argument components as represented by the diagrams, we developed a potential model of levels of validity in classroom-based argumentation.

Author/Presenter

Yuling Zhuang

AnnaMarie Conner

Year
2022
Short Description

This study illustrates how two secondary mathematics teachers used students’ incorrect answers as they supported students’ engagement in collective argumentation.

“Science Theatre Makes You Good at Science”: Affordances of Embodied Performances in Urban Elementary Science Classrooms

School science continues to alienate students identifying with nondominant, non-western cultures, and learners of color, and considers science as an enterprise where success necessitates divorcing the self and corporeal body from ideas and the mind. Resisting the colonizing pedagogy of the mind–body divide, we aimed at creating pedagogical spaces and places in science classes that sustain equitable opportunities for engagement and meaning making where body and mind are enmeshed.

Author/Presenter

Maria Varelas

Rebecca T. Kotler

Hannah D. Natividad

Nathan C. Phillips

Rachelle P. Tsachor

Rebecca Woodard

Marcie Gutierrez

Miguel A. Melchor

Maria Rosario

Year
2021
Short Description

School science continues to alienate students identifying with nondominant, non-western cultures, and learners of color, and considers science as an enterprise where success necessitates divorcing the self and corporeal body from ideas and the mind. Resisting the colonizing pedagogy of the mind–body divide, we aimed at creating pedagogical spaces and places in science classes that sustain equitable opportunities for engagement and meaning making where body and mind are enmeshed. In the context of a partnership between school- and university-based educators and researchers, we explored how multimodal literacies cultivated through the performing arts, provide students from minoritized communities opportunities to both create knowledge and to position themselves as science experts and brilliant and creative meaning makers.

Conceptions and Consequences of Mathematical Argumentation, Justification, and Proof

This book aims to advance ongoing debates in the field of mathematics and mathematics education regarding conceptions of argumentation, justification, and proof and the consequences for research and practice when applying particular conceptions of each construct. Through analyses of classroom practice across grade levels using different lenses - particular conceptions of argumentation, justification, and proof - researchers consider the implications of how each conception shapes empirical outcomes.

Author/Presenter

Kristen N. Bieda,
AnnaMarie Conner,
Karl W. Kosko,
Megan Staples

AnnaMarie Conner

Karl W. Kosko

Megan Staples

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2020
Short Description

This book aims to advance ongoing debates in the field of mathematics and mathematics education regarding conceptions of argumentation, justification, and proof and the consequences for research and practice when applying particular conceptions of each construct. Through analyses of classroom practice across grade levels using different lenses - particular conceptions of argumentation, justification, and proof - researchers consider the implications of how each conception shapes empirical outcomes. In each section, organized by grade band, authors adopt particular conceptions of argumentation, justification, and proof, and they analyse one data set from each perspective. In addition, each section includes a synthesis chapter from an expert in the field to bring to the fore potential implications, as well as new questions, raised by the analyses. Finally, a culminating section considers the use of each conception across grade bands and data sets.

Domain appropriateness and skepticism in viable argumentation

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2020
Short Description

Several recent studies have focused on helping students understand the limitations of empirical arguments (e.g., Stylianides, G. J. & Stylianides, A. J., 2009, Brown, 2014). One view is that students use empirical argumentation because they hold empirical proof schemes—they are convinced a general claim is true by checking a few cases (Harel & Sowder, 1998). Some researchers have sought to unseat students’ empirical proof schemes by developing students’ skepticism, their uncertainty about the truth of a general claim in the face of confirming (but not exhaustive) evidence (e.g., Brown, 2014; Stylianides, G. J. & Stylianides, A. J., 2009). With sufficient skepticism, students would seek more secure, non-empirical arguments to convince themselves that a general claim is true. We take a different perspective, seeking to develop students’ awareness of domain appropriateness (DA), whether the argument type is appropriate to the domain of the claim. In particular, DA entails understanding that an empirical check of a proper subset of cases in a claim’s domain does not (i) guarantee the claim is true and does not (ii) provide an argument that is acceptable in the mathematical or classroom community, although checking all cases does both (i) and (ii). DA is distinct from skepticism; it is not concerned with students’ confidence about the truth of a general claim. We studied how ten 8th graders developed DA through classroom experiences that were part of a broader project focused on developing viable argumentation. 

Eliminating counterexamples: A case study intervention for improving adolescents’ ability to critique direct arguments

Students’ difficulties with argumentation, proving, and the role of counterexamples in proving are well documented. Students in this study experienced an intervention for improving their argumentation and proving practices. The intervention included the eliminating counterexamples (ECE) framework as a means of constructing and critiquing viable arguments for a general claim. This framework involves constructing descriptions of all possible counterexamples to a conditional claim and determining whether or not a direct argument eliminates the possibility of counterexamples.

Author/Presenter

Carolyn Maher

Year
2020
Short Description

Students’ difficulties with argumentation, proving, and the role of counterexamples in proving are well documented. Students in this study experienced an intervention for improving their argumentation and proving practices. The intervention included the eliminating counterexamples (ECE) framework as a means of constructing and critiquing viable arguments for a general claim. This framework involves constructing descriptions of all possible counterexamples to a conditional claim and determining whether or not a direct argument eliminates the possibility of counterexamples. This case study investigates U.S. eighth-grade (age 13) mathematics students’ conceptions about the validity of a direct argument after the students received instruction on the ECE framework. We describe student activities in response to the intervention, and we identify students’ conceptions that are inconsistent with canonical notions of mathematical proving and appear to be barriers to using the ECE framework.