Mathematics

Three 18-session design experiments were conducted, each with 6–9 7th and 8th grade students, to investigate relationships between students’ rational number knowledge and algebraic reasoning. Students were to represent in drawings and equations two multiplicatively related unknown heights (e.g., one was 5 times another). Twelve of the 22 participating students operated with the second multiplicative concept, which meant they viewed known quantities as units of units, or two-levels-of-units structures, but not as three-levels-of-units structures.

Differentiating instruction (DI) is a pedagogical approach to managing classroom diversity in which teachers proactively adapt curricula, teaching methods, and products of learning to address individual students' needs in an effort to maximize learning for all (Tomlinson, 2005). DI is rooted in formative assessment, positions teachers and students together as learners, and involves providing choices and different pathways for students. Although teachers can differentiate for many characteristics of students, we differentiate for students' diverse ways of thinking.

In this paper, using written responses of 37 PSTs preparing to teach grades 1-8 mathematics, we examined explanations they constructed to support their problem solutions and explanations they provided in support of their critiques of student-generated explanations. We also examined features of explanations on which PSTs drew in their critiques of mathematical explanations of students. Our results draw attention to the importance of helping PSTs develop competencies in constructing and critiquing mathematical explanations concurrently.

Black learners are subject to systemic physical, symbolic, and epistemological violence in mathematics classrooms. Such violence has negative ramifications for Black children’s mathematics learning and identity development. The authors argue that space should be made within the mathematics classroom to repair the harm caused by this violence. This article describes an identity-based curriculum, Mathematics for Justice, Identity, and meta-Cognition (or MaJIC), that provides a form of mathematics therapy through a restorative justice framework.

Presentation slides from the 42nd Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education.

Hohensee, C., Willoughby, L., & Gartland, S. (2018, July). Backward transfer effects when learning about quadratic functions. In E. Bergqvist, M. Österholm, C. Granberg, & L. Sumpter (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 5, p. 65). Umeå, Sweden: PME.

Presentation slides from the 41st annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education.

Hohensee, C., Gartland, S., & Willoughby, L. (2019, November). Backward transfer effects on action and process views of functions. In S. Otten, A. G. Candela, Z. de Araujo, C. Haines, & C. Munter (Eds.), Proceedings of the 41st annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. St Louis, MO: University of Missouri.

Presentation slides and handout from the 2019 NCTM Regional Conference in Nashville, TN.

How should we expect growing understandings of the nature of mathematical practice to inform classroom mathematical practice? We address this question from a perspective that takes seriously the notion that mathematics education, as a societal enterprise, is accountable to multiple sets of stakeholders, with the discipline of mathematics being only one of them. As they lead instruction, teachers can benefit from the influence of understandings of mathematical practice but they also need to recognize obligations to other stakeholders.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic school closures, the VAM project compiled example strategies, tasks, and apps for supporting students who are English learners (ELs) in mathematics, with information about how to adapt these examples to remote learning. Online workshops related to the resources and strategies were also offered for educators.