Ear to the Ground features voices from various corners of the mathematics education world.
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Elizabeth T. Walker and Jeffrey S. Molisani
Multiple entry points on the road to assessing students can tell teachers if students can do math and therefore apply math to real-world problems.
Robert Q. Berry III and Mark W. Ellis
See how one seventh-grade teacher melds NCTM's Process Standards, CCSSM's Standards for Mathematical Practice, and multidimensional teaching to engage students.
Lisa Berger
An analysis of problems from state assessments and other sources helps preservice teachers discover analogous mathematical representations.
David W. Stinson
This article shows how equity research in mathematics education can be decentered by reporting the “voices” of mathematically successful African American male students as they recount their experiences with school mathematics, illustrating, in essence, how they negotiated the White male math myth. Using post-structural theory, the concepts discourse, person/identity, and power/agency are reinscribed or redefined. The article also shows that using a post-structural reinscription of these concepts, a more complex analysis of the multiplicitous and fragmented robust mathematics identities of African American male students is possible—an analysis that refutes simple explanations of effort. The article concludes, not with “answers,” but with questions to facilitate dialogue among those who are interested in the mathematics achievement and persistence of African American male students—and equity and justice in the mathematics classroom for all students.
Tamsin Meaney, Tony Trinick, and Uenuku Fairhall
In this article, we explore how a school in Aotearoa [New Zealand] infuses the identity of Indigenous students into the school-based curriculum through the promotion of their language and culture in mathematics lessons. Bernstein's pedagogic device illustrates how teachers' practices were influenced by being able to think the “unthinkable.” This came from the contestation that arose when competing bodies of knowledge had to be integrated both at the school level and at the classroom level. For equity to be achieved regarding students' mathematics learning, parents' and the community's aspirations for students' education need to be infused into debates about the knowledge that teachers are expected to include in their teaching. This enables the local context to make a positive contribution to students' learning. It also implies that programs for improvement should not be imposed on schools unless there are opportunities for them to be adapted to the needs of individual schools.
Rochelle Gutiérrez
Over the past decade, the mathematics education research community has incorporated more sociocultural perspectives into its ways of understanding and examining teaching and learning. However, researchers who have a long history of addressing anti-racism and social justice issues in mathematics have moved beyond this sociocultural view to espouse sociopolitical concepts and theories, highlighting identity and power at play. This article highlights some promising conceptual tools from critical theory (including critical race theory/Latcrit theory) and post-structuralism and makes an argument for why taking the sociopolitical turn is important for both researchers and practitioners. Potential benefits and challenges of this turn are also discussed.
Sarah J. Selmer and Kimberly Floyd
A proactive preschool teacher differentiates instruction by using the Universal Design for Learning framework to decrease barriers that limit students' access to classroom learning.
Christina M. Punches-Guntsch and Erin N. Kenney
Teachers in an urban high school design a learning environment for at-risk mathematics students.
Thomas E. Hodges, Terry D. Rose, and April D. Hicks
A series of diagnostic questions helps this teacher better assess and comprehend the misconceptions of third graders who struggle with multiplication.
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