Children explore concepts of capacity and height measurement through sand play in nursery class.
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Exploring Young Children’s Math Thinking in Sandcastle Building
Hannah Tan and Cynthia Lim
Dilemmas and Design Principles in Planning for Justice-Oriented Community-Based Mathematical Modeling Lessons
Jennifer M. Suh, Holly Tate, Maryanne Rossbach, Samara Green, Kathy Matson, Julia Aguirre, Padhu Seshaiyer, and Sam Steen
This article details the development of design principles to support teachers in planning for a Community-Based Mathematical Modeling task with a focus on social justice in the elementary grades. By reflecting on the dilemmas we encountered in the design and enactment of the tasks, we developed five design principles that allowed us to address issues of social justice as well as attend to powerful mathematical ideas to bring awareness and take action around a local problem. Through our article, we hope to share with mathematics teacher educators design principles to help plan for tasks with pre- and in-service teachers that prioritize connecting mathematics to social issues and empower both teachers and students to take action to make a positive impact in the community.
When Only White Students Talk: EQUIP-ing Prospective Teachers to Notice Inequitable Participation
Sunghwan Byun, Niral Shah, and Daniel Reinholz
We introduce a teacher learning practice called EQUIP-ing, which aims to foster sociopolitical noticing by leveraging EQUIP, an equity-oriented classroom observation tool. We detail our iterations of EQUIP-ing to a field-based Number Talk experience in a secondary mathematics methods course with 25 White prospective teachers (PTs). We offer empirical accounts of how EQUIP-ing empowered PTs to connect their teaching practices with racialized and gendered patterns of student participation; as a result, PTs began to reconsider taken-for-granted practices. However, we also found that PTs demonstrated potentially detrimental ways of attributing marginalizing patterns to minoritized students without actionable plans to redress the inequity. We conclude by inviting mathematics teacher educators to apply EQUIP-ing while emphasizing purposeful support for asset-based noticing.
Filling a “Void”: The Mathematical Quality in Planning Protocol for Mathematics Teacher Educators
Kevin Voogt and Kristen Bieda
This article explores one novice mathematics teacher educator’s initial use of the Mathematical Quality in Planning Protocol, an innovative tool that was developed to assist in providing feedback on the mathematical quality of novice mathematics teachers’ lesson plans. The protocol was devised to help mathematics teacher educators bridge the gap between prospective teachers’ mathematical content knowledge and their mathematical content knowledge for teaching. Results of our analysis on an initial use of the protocol point to its potential as a tool to help mathematics teacher educators direct their feedback from being overly focused on the pedagogical aspects of the lesson (e.g., timing, planned activities) to the mathematical content prospective teachers are attempting to teach (e.g., anticipated student solutions, problem-solving strategies).
Puddle Play!
Deanna Pecaski McLennan
The Relationship Between Teachers' Mathematical Content and Pedagogical Knowledge, Teachers' Perceptions, and Student Achievement
Patricia F. Campbell, Masako Nishio, Toni M. Smith, Lawrence M. Clark, Darcy L. Conant, Amber H. Rust, Jill Neumayer DePiper, Toya Jones Frank, Matthew J. Griffin, and Youyoung Choi
This study of early-career teachers identified a significant relationship between upper-elementary teachers' mathematical content knowledge and their students' mathematics achievement, after controlling for student- and teacher-level characteristics. Findings provide evidence of the relevance of teacher knowledge and perceptions for teacher preparation and professional development programs.
Difference Not Deficit: Reconceptualizing Mathematical Learning Disabilities
Katherine E. Lewis
Mathematical learning disability (MLD) research often conflates low achievement with disabilities and focuses exclusively on deficits of students with MLDs. In this study, the author adopts an alternative approach using a response-to-intervention MLD classification model to identify the resources students draw on rather than the skills they lack. Detailed diagnostic analyses of the sessions revealed that the students understood mathematical representations in atypical ways and that this directly contributed to the persistent difficulties they experienced. Implications for screening and remediation approaches are discussed.
The Impact of Challenging Geometry and Measurement Units on the Achievement of Grade 2 Students
M. Katherine Gavin, Tutita M. Casa, Jill L. Adelson, and Janine M. Firmender
The primary goal of Project M2 was to develop and field–test challenging geometry and measurement units for all K—2 students. This article reports on the achievement results for students in Grade 2 at 12 urban and suburban sites in 4 states using the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) mathematics concepts subtest and an open–response assessment. Hierarchical linear modeling indicated no significant differences between the experimental (n = 193) and comparison group (n = 192) on the ITBS (84% of items focused on number); thus, mathematics concepts were not negatively impacted by this 12–week study of geometry and measurement. Statistically significant differences (p < .001) with a large effect size (d = 0.89) favored the experimental group on the open–response assessment. Thus, the experimental group exhibited a deeper understanding of geometry and measurement concepts as measured by the open–response assessment while still performing as well on a traditional measure covering all mathematics content.
