Mathematics

Making Mathematical Thinking Visible

For English language learners, diagrams can be a powerful tool to develop and communicate mathematical understanding. Imagine being a 6th grade student who is still learning English, sitting in a mathematics classroom and trying to navigate the lesson. You might wonder: What is the teacher saying I should do? Did my classmates solve it the way I did? Will the other students laugh at me when I try to explain how I solved the problem?

Author/Presenter

Johannah Nikula

Jill Neumayer DePiper

Mark Driscoll

Year
2019
Short Description

This article describes how diagrams can be a powerful tool to develop and communicate mathematical understanding for English language learners.

Developing Student 21st Century Skills in Selected Exemplary Inclusive STEM High Schools

There is a need to arm students with noncognitive, or 21st Century, skills to prepare them for a more STEM-based job market. As STEM schools are created in a response to this call to action, research is needed to better understand how exemplary STEM schools successfully accomplish this goal. This conversion mixed method study analyzed student work samples and teacher lesson plans from seven exemplary inclusive STEM high schools to better understand at what level teachers at these schools are engaging and developing student 21st Century skills.

Author/Presenter

Stephanie M. Stehle

Erin E. Peters-Burton

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2019
Short Description

This conversion mixed method study analyzed student work samples and teacher lesson plans from seven exemplary inclusive STEM high schools to better understand at what level teachers at these schools are engaging and developing student 21st Century skills.

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

David A. Yopp

Rob Ely

Anne E. Adams

Annelise W. Nielsen

Erin C. Corwine

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2019
Short Description

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 eliminating counterexamples (ECE) framework.

Empowering Students with Specific Learning Disabilities: Jim’s Concept of Unit Fraction

Cognitive differences have historically led to deficit assumptions concerning the mathematical experiences that children with learning disabilities (LD) can access. We argue that the problem can be located not within children but instead as a mismatch between features of instruction and children’s unique learning abilities. In this paper, we investigate how one elementary school child, Jim, with specific visual motor integration differences constructed a unit fraction concept.

Author/Presenter

Jessica H. Hunt

Juanita Silva

Rachel Lambert

Year
2019
Short Description

This paper investigates how one elementary school child with specific visual motor integration differences constructed a unit fraction concept.

Teachers’ Views of Students’ Mathematical Capabilities: Challenges and Possibilities for Ambitious Reform

Background: Research suggests that teachers’ views of their students’ capabilities matter when attempting to accomplish instructional reform, particularly in settings serving historically marginalized groups of students. However, to date, this issue has received minimal attention in the scholarship and practice of mathematics instructional reform.

Author/Presenter

Kara Jackson

Lynsey Gibbons

Charlotte J. Sharpe

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2017
Short Description

This study offers a large-scale snapshot of middle-grades teachers’ views of their students’ mathematical capabilities in the context of instructional reform.

Teachers’ Views of Students’ Mathematical Capabilities: Challenges and Possibilities for Ambitious Reform

Background: Research suggests that teachers’ views of their students’ capabilities matter when attempting to accomplish instructional reform, particularly in settings serving historically marginalized groups of students. However, to date, this issue has received minimal attention in the scholarship and practice of mathematics instructional reform.

Author/Presenter

Kara Jackson

Lynsey Gibbons

Charlotte J. Sharpe

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2017
Short Description

This study offers a large-scale snapshot of middle-grades teachers’ views of their students’ mathematical capabilities in the context of instructional reform.

In-Game Actions to Promote Game-Based Math Learning Engagement

Game-based learning (GBL) has increasingly been used to promote students’ learning engagement. Although prior GBL studies have highlighted the significance of learning engagement as a mediator of students’ meaningful learning, the existing accounts failed to capture specific evidence of how exactly students’ in-game actions in GBL enhance learning engagement. Hence, this mixed-method study was designed to examine whether middle school students’ in-game actions are likely to promote certain types of learning engagement (i.e., content and cognitive engagement).

Author/Presenter

Jewoong Moon

Fengfeng Ke

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2019
Short Description

This mixed-method study was designed to examine whether middle school students’ in-game actions are likely to promote certain types of learning engagement (i.e., content and cognitive engagement).

Complementary Assessments of Prospective Teachers’ Skill with Eliciting Student Thinking

As teacher education shifts to focus on teaching beginners to do the work of teaching, assessments need to shift to focus on assessing practice. We focus on one teaching practice, eliciting student thinking, in the context of elementary mathematics. We describe assessments in two contexts (field and simulation). For each assessment, we describe the eliciting of three prospective teachers what could be seen about the skills of group of prospective teachers (N = 44).

Author/Presenter

Meghan Shaughnessy

Timothy A. Boerst

Susanna Owens Farmer

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2019
Short Description

This article reports on how three prospective teachers had differing opportunities to demonstrate their skills in the context of the field assessment, but similar opportunities in the context of the simulation assessment.

Complementary Assessments of Prospective Teachers’ Skill with Eliciting Student Thinking

As teacher education shifts to focus on teaching beginners to do the work of teaching, assessments need to shift to focus on assessing practice. We focus on one teaching practice, eliciting student thinking, in the context of elementary mathematics. We describe assessments in two contexts (field and simulation). For each assessment, we describe the eliciting of three prospective teachers what could be seen about the skills of group of prospective teachers (N = 44).

Author/Presenter

Meghan Shaughnessy

Timothy A. Boerst

Susanna Owens Farmer

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2019
Short Description

This article reports on how three prospective teachers had differing opportunities to demonstrate their skills in the context of the field assessment, but similar opportunities in the context of the simulation assessment.