Elementary

In this study we investigate the teaching of the associative property in a natural classroom setting through observation of classroom video of several elementary math classes in a large urban school district.

This column describes creating a classroom culture for engineering.

This column describes creating a classroom culture for engineering.

The imperative that all students, including English learners (ELs), achieve high academic standards and have opportunities to participate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning has become even more urgent and complex given shifts in science and mathematics standards. As a group, these students are underrepresented in STEM fields in college and in the workforce at a time when the demand for workers and professionals in STEM fields is unmet and increasing. However, English learners bring a wealth of resources to STEM learning, including knowledge and interest in STEM-related content that is born out of their experiences in their homes and communities, home languages, variation in discourse practices, and, in some cases, experiences with schooling in other countries.

English Learners in STEM Subjects: Transforming Classrooms, Schools, and Lives examines the research on ELs’ learning, teaching, and assessment in STEM subjects and provides guidance on how to improve learning outcomes in STEM for these students. This report considers the complex social and academic use of language delineated in the new mathematics and science standards, the diversity of the population of ELs, and the integration of English as a second language instruction with core instructional programs in STEM.

This brief draws on research supported by the National Science Foundation to highlight important considerations for educators and others who design and provide STEM educational experiences for young children.

In the growing field of K-12 engineering education, there is limited research that highlights the experiences of youth from historically marginalized communities within engineering learning environments. This study offers insights into the ways in which two groups of elementary school students constructed approaches for participating in the engineering design practice of collaborative reflective decision-making. Findings suggest that students conceptualized urban, engineering learning environments as spaces for risk management. This notion of managing risks informed their participation in collaborative decision-making, and the ways in which they viewed themselves as doers of engineering. Implications for this study include the continued need for the development of methodologies and frameworks that provide opportunities to uncover these potential risks, and design supports for student participation in engineering design practices.

In the growing field of K-12 engineering education, there is limited research that highlights the experiences of youth from historically marginalized communities within engineering learning environments. This study offers insights into the ways in which two groups of elementary school students constructed approaches for participating in the engineering design practice of collaborative reflective decision-making. Findings suggest that students conceptualized urban, engineering learning environments as spaces for risk management. This notion of managing risks informed their participation in collaborative decision-making, and the ways in which they viewed themselves as doers of engineering. Implications for this study include the continued need for the development of methodologies and frameworks that provide opportunities to uncover these potential risks, and design supports for student participation in engineering design practices.

Exploring how children’s conceptions might advance through their implicit knowledge provides a fundamental view into children’s mathematics and elucidates possible alternative definitions of “learning difference (LD)”. I present an evolving theoretical framework that depict children with LD’s knowing and learning as nascent understandings that emerge from a real-time negotiation of meaning within “small environments” of instructional intervention. These negotiations are supported, or not, by the teacher’s propensity to engage in the knowledge of children and use teaching to construct shared goals for learning. Implications of the work include new ways educators might define LDs as a complex phenomenon that reflects how children’s knowledge of mathematics advances, or not, through a shared cognition grounded in children’s unique knowing and learning.

Cognitive differences intrinsic to children with learning disabilities (LDs) have historically led to deficit assumptions concerning the mathematical experiences these children “need” or can access. We argue that the problem can be located not within children but instead as a mismatch between instruction and children’s unique abilities. To illustrate this possibility, we present the case of “Jim,” a fifth-grader with perceptual-motor LDs. Our ongoing analysis of Jim’s fractional reasoning in seven equal sharing based tutoring sessions suggests that Jim leveraged his knowledge of number facts and alternative representations to advance his reasoning.

In this study, we challenge the deficit perspective on mathematical knowing and learning for children labeled as LD, focusing on their struggles not as a within student attribute, but rather as within teacher-learner interactions. We present two cases of fifth-grade students labeled LD as they interacted with a researcher-teacher during two constructivist-oriented teaching experiments designed to foster a concept of unit fraction. Data analysis revealed three main types of interactions, and how they changed over time, which seemed to support the students’ learning: Assess, Cause and Effect Reflection, and Comparison/Prediction Reflection. We thus argue for an intervention in interaction that occurs in the instructional process for students with LD, which should replace attempts to “fix” ‘deficiencies’ that we claim to contribute to disabling such students.