Mathematics

Get them talking: Your formula for bringing math concepts to life!

Mathematics standards in the United States describe communication as an essential part of mathematics. One outlet for communication is writing. To understand the mathematics writing of students, we conducted a synthesis to evaluate empirical research about mathematics writing. We identified 29 studies that included a mathematics-writing assessment, intervention, or survey for students in 1st through 12th grade. All studies were published between 1991 and 2015.

Students need basic mathematics to fully participate in and contribute to society throughout their lives; however, many of them are not developing the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need. The National Science Foundation’s DRK-12 projects are developing, implementing, and/or studying resources, models, and technologies for teacher and student learning that have the potential to expand our understanding and address some of the most compelling issues we face when challenged to improve student achievement in mathematics.

Arguments for significantly improving doctoral programs have long been made, both nationally (Bender, 1997; Jackson, 1996; Golde & Walker, 2006; Walker, et al., 2007) and internationally (Cumming, 2010). The nature and variety of doctoral programs makes it difficult to single out specific changes that would be equally applicable to every discipline-specific doctoral program. Therefore, this commentary will focus on doctoral programs and doctoral preparation in mathematics education.

Institutions in the United States have been producing PhDs in mathematics education for more than a century. Teachers College at Columbia University and the University of Chicago produced the first graduates in mathematics education in 1906 and 1912, respectively. In those institutions, doctoral students in mathematics education typically took courses along with doctoral students in mathematics. However, the dissertation research took a different direction as doctorates in mathematics education focused on issues related to mathematics learning, teaching, or curriculum.

Research has documented that doctoral preparation in mathematics education varies greatly across institutions of higher education (McIntosh and Crosswhite [13], Reys and Kilpatrick [18], Reys and Dossey [15]). This study reports data gathered from over 500 doctoral graduates in mathematics education from 23 institutions in the USA from 1997 to 2014 as they self-assessed their research preparation during their doctoral program. At least 80% of the doctoral graduates rated their preparation as adequate or very well addressed for qualitative methods and quantitative methods.

There are many paths to becoming an active researcher in mathematics education. This article describes one ideal path. It begins with identifying a useful educational background prior to entering a doctoral program. Then it offers some suggestions for selecting an institution to pursue a doctoral program. The article outlines some academic knowledge and intern experiences that will help prepare the next generation of researchers in mathematics education once a doctoral program has been entered.

While Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields have increased in importance over the past decade, minorities have remained traditionally underrepresented in these fields. In this study we seek to better understand some of the factors that might contribute to or potentially mitigate early STEM pipeline leaks, specifically, high school graduation and college entrance leaks. Student interest formed in the early school years has an impact on future course selections and persistence in school.

Previous research has examined the impact of computing interventions to reduce digital inequity. However, few studies focus on factors such as inequalities to material access, Internet use patterns, and affective or emotional anxiety. This paper investigates the potential role of emotional costs and computer self-efficacy in the connection between computer use at home and students’ computer use patterns. Data for this research come from pretest and posttest surveys administered to fourth- and fifth-grade African-American students.

Over the past decade, there has been a strong national push to increase minority students’ positive attitudes towards STEM-related careers. However, despite this focus, minority students have remained underrepresented in these fields. Some researchers have directed their attention towards improving the STEM pipeline which carries students through our educational system and into STEM careers. Previous research has shown that expectancy-value theory (EVT) is useful for examining the short-term as well as long-term academic motivations and intentions of elementary age minority students.