This project is documenting how students with learning disabilities (LD) access and advance their conceptual understanding of fractions. Rather than focusing on the knowledge students do not have, this work is focused on uncovering students' informal knowledge that can bridge to fractions and how instruction can be used to promote conceptual change.
Dr. Hunt, a former middle school and elementary school mathematics in inclusive settings in a state-demonstration STEM school, works with students deemed to be at risk for mathematics difficulties or labeled as having disabilities. Hunt contends that research and pedagogical practice for children with disabilities should begin from a respect for children's ways of knowing and learning. Rather than focusing on whether students can or cannot develop conceptual understanding, research should attempt to uncover the complex understanding students DO have. She argues that teaching based in learning theory that positions children's learning as adaptation advances reasoning, sense-making, and co-construction of meaning.
The overall goal of this CAREER award project is to re-direct and re-conceptualized research and practice across mathematics education and special education to support students to build rich concepts in mathematics through student-based instructional interventions. FAACT accomplishes this goal by - toward (a) uncovering the understandings students with LD do have of fraction concepts, (b) documenting how cognitive and/or early mathematics skills might affect the processes and products of learning, and (c) understanding how growth of conceptual knowledge occurs in these students and how to nurture this growth through the learning process.
Through this award, Dr. Hunt is re-conceptualizing intensive intervention as children's knowing and learning in "Small Environments". This approach suggests a redirect of research and instructional practice in mathematics for an underserved population of students. The project has the potential to offer a transformative approach to mathematics instruction for students with LD, bringing together expertise on learning disabilities and mathematics education to address an area in which there is very little research.
The main outcomes of the project include (1) a theory of knowing, learning, and teaching connected to students with LDs in the small environment of supplemental and intensive intervention, (2) a six stage research-based trajectory specific to the conceptual understandings of fractions evidenced by students with LD, and (3) an adaptive intervention program consisting of (a) a clinical interview educators can use to understand students’ initial fraction thinking, (b) an instructional trajectory [lesson planning framework, four task sets, and corresponding teacher moves to support student learning], and (c) an instructional decision making guide based on the instructional trajectory to aid teachers in designing student-centered instruction both in small groups and individualized formats.
This project was previously funded under award #1253254 and 1446250.
2019 STEM for All Video Showcase
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Title: Fractional Reasoning: Students with Learning Disabilities
Presenter(s): Jessica Hunt, Andy Khounmeuang, Kristi Martin, Blain Patterson, & Juanita Silva |
Publications:
Hunt. J.H. & Ainslie, J. (accepted). Designing effective math interventions: An educator’s guide to learner-driven instruction. New York, NY: Routledge.
Tzur, R. & Hunt. J.H. & (in press). Fractional reasoning. In Y. Xin, H. Thouless, & R. Tzur (Eds). Enabling learning of struggling students. New York, NY: Springer.
Hunt. J.H. & Tzur, R. (in press). Connecting theory to concept building. In Y. Xin, H. Thouless, & R. Tzur (Eds). Enabling learning of struggling students. New York, NY: Springer.
Tzur, R. & Hunt. J.H. (in press). A theory-backed framework for knowing and learning. In Y. Xin, H. Thouless, & R. Tzur (Eds). Enabling learning of struggling students. New York, NY: Springer.
Hunt. J.H. & Lewis, K. (in press). Extending students’ knowledge of fractions as relational quantities: Teaching for understanding. In D.P. Bryant (Ed.), Intensifying mathematics interventions for students who struggle learning mathematics. New York, N.Y.: The Guilford Press.
Hunt, J. H., Martin, K., Khounmeuang, A., Silva, J., Patterson, B., & Welch-Ptak, J. (2020). Design, Development, and Initial Testing of Asset-Based Intervention Grounded in Trajectories of Student Fraction Learning. Learning Disability Quarterly, 0731948720963589.
Hunt, J., & Stein, M. K. (2020). Constructing Goals for Student Learning through Conversation. Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK-12, 113(11), 904-909.
Hunt, J. H. & Silva, J. (Accepted for publication). Emma's negotiation of number: Implicit intensive intervention. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education.
Hunt, J. H., MacDonald, B. L., & Silva, J. (Revisions). Thinking, tricks, or teaching: Gina's mathematical reality.
Hunt, J. H., Silva, J., & Welch-Ptak, J. (2018). Changing the goal: Reasoning and sense making in children's small environments. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Hunt, J. H., MacDonald, B., Lambert, R., Sugita, T., & Silva, J. (2018). Think, pair, show, share to increase classroom discourse. Teaching Children Mathematics (Focus Issue - Invited contribution), 25(2), 80–84.
Lambert, R., Tan, P., Hunt, J. H., & Candella, A. (2018). Re-humanizing the mathematics education of students with disabilities: Critical perspectives on research and practice. Investigations in Mathematics Learning, 10(3), 129–132.
Lynch, S., Hunt, J. H., & Lewis, K. (2018). Productive struggle for all: Differentiated instruction. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, 24(4), 194–201.
Hunt, J. H. & Tzur, R. (2017). Where is difference? Processes of mathematical remediation through a constructivist lens. Journal of Mathematical Behavior, 48, 62–76.
Hunt, J. H., *Welch-Ptak, J., & *Silva, J. (2016). Initial understandings of fraction concepts evidenced by students with learning disabilities and difficulties: A framework. Learning Disabilities Quarterly, 39(4), 213–225.
Recent Presentations:
Hunt, J. H. & Silva, J. (2019, April). Emma's numbers: Whose knowledge is valued? What knowledge is valued? Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Hunt, J. & Wilson, J. (2019, April). Marginalized within a marginalized community: Supporting meaning making. Paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Hunt, J., MacDonald, B., Lambert, R., & Silva, J. (2019, April). Think-pair-show-share: UDL and talk moves. Presented at the annual meeting of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, San Diego, CA.
Hunt, J. H., et al. (November 2018). Complex conceptions of fractions: Negotiating meaning in the small environment. Presented at the Regional meeting of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Kansas City, MO.
