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Eric.ed.gov – “With Percentages the 100 Is Always in the Denominator”: From the Field to Pre-Service Teachers

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The ubiquity of the subject of percentages in our everyday life demands that math teachers and pre-service math teachers demonstrate a profound knowledge and thorough understanding of the concept of percentages. This work, which originated from one specific lesson in an 8th grade math class, studies the conceptual understanding and problem-solving strategies of 17 pre-service math teachers. We exhibit and analyze the pre-service teachers’ misconceptions and their inefficient or false problem-solving strategies. We identify two main misconceptions. The first we name “In percentage problem is 100 always the denominator?” and the second “One can handle percentage problems using the same techniques as in numerical problems” (or Over-transferring of numerical problems). We hypothesize reasons and explanations for these misconceptions. The frequent use of percentages in everyday life and… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – The Effects of a Multi-Component Intervention to Increase Math Performance for Students with EBD in Alternative Educational Settings

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Historically, secondary students with emotional behavioral disorders (EBD) have made poor progress in mathematics putting them at risk for school failure and placement in an alternative setting. Two under studied areas essential to success in mathematics are fractions and algebra. The purpose of this study was to test the effects of a multi-component intervention on the math performance for middle school students with EBD in an alternative educational setting. This study used a one-group nonequivalent dependent variables design (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002) with multiple measures in multiple waves to assess the effects. Repeated measures ANOVA indicated that students significantly improved their math performance on both fractions and algebra using researcher developed measures. Social validity results indicated that teacher and students found the intervention to be an… Continue Reading