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Eric.ed.gov – Beyond Introductory Programming: Success Factors for Advanced Programming

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Numerous studies document high drop-out and failure rates for students in computer programming classes. Studies show that even when some students pass programming classes, they still do not know how to program. Many factors have been considered to explain this problem including gender, age, prior programming experience, major, math background, personal attributes, and the programming language itself. Research in this area has mainly been confined to introductory programming courses. This study explores the problem at a higher level. It tracks students longitudinally as they move from the first introductory programming class, to the second introductory class, and finally, to completion of an advanced programming course. The research question answered was: What are the factors contributing to the success or lack of success in advanced programming? The success… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – What Can Other Areas Teach Us about Numeracy?

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Education professionals, regardless of their specialist area, are broadly aware of the importance of numeracy. Internationally, definitions of numeracy (known elsewhere as mathematical literacy or quantitative reasoning), describe “an individual’s capacity to formulate, employ and interpret mathematics in a variety of contexts… reasoning mathematically and using mathematical concepts, procedures, facts, and tools to describe, explain and predict phenomena… recognising the role that mathematics plays in the world and to make the well-founded judgements and decisions needed by constructive, engaged and reflective citizens.” (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, 2014, p. 37), or more locally, numeracy is “the knowledge and skills to use mathematics confidently across all learning areas at school and in their lives more broadly… It involves students recognising and understanding the role of mathematics in… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Why University Teacher Preparation Programs Should Provide a New Set of Personal Constructions of Mathematics through Math Content Courses for Elementary Teachers

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Teacher preparation programs are in danger of seriously under-preparing elementary teachers to teach mathematics for understanding if they wait to provide students with evidence of effective mathematics teaching methods in the mathematics methods courses. With strong traditional beliefs about how mathematics ought to be taught and their determination to be able to explain mathematics to elementary children, the methods course is much too late to change preservice teachers’ perceptions of mathematics or how to teach it. If we want to change the way they teach mathematics, we must do it in their mathematics content courses. In the content courses, we have a chance to provide them with positive and successful personal mathematics constructions. Only when they learn to become active problem-solvers, can they teach others the importance… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Mathematical Teaching Strategies: Pathways to Critical Thinking and Metacognition

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: A teacher that emphasizes reasoning, logic and validity gives their students access to mathematics as an effective way of practicing critical thinking. All students have the ability to enhance and expand their critical thinking when learning mathematics. Students can develop this ability when confronting mathematical problems, identifying possible solutions and evaluating and justifying their reasons for the results, thereby allowing students to become confident critical thinkers. Critical thinking and reasoning allows students to think about how they utilize their discipline of mathematical skills (i.e., they think about their method of thinking). Metacognition helps students to recognize that math is logical reasoning on solutions to problems. Students are taught how to: identify scenarios; evaluate; select problem-solving strategies; identify possible conclusions; select logical conclusions; describe how a solution was… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Mathematics and Science Teacher Academy Evaluation. MSTA Final Report

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In a time of evolving Algebraic standards and expectations for Minnesota teachers and students, the establishment of quality professional development and technical assistance can help educators move more confidently toward greater mathematics understanding and, subsequently, successful teaching and learning. To this end, the Minnesota Department of Education has developed the Math and Science Teacher Academy (MSTA), a statewide infrastructure focused on the improvement of mathematics and science instruction. As external evaluators, Hezel Associates has supported Minnesota’s initiative through formative and summative research since the program’s inception during the summer of 2008. In this report of the MSTA evaluation’s activities, findings, commendations and recommendations, the evaluators focus on presenting new information that has not been presented elsewhere. They combine this new information with key points that were described… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Tiering Instruction on Speed for Middle School Students

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: A design experiment with 18 students in a regular seventh grade math class was conducted to investigate how to differentiate instruction for students’ diverse ways of thinking during a 26-day unit on proportional reasoning. The class included students operating with three different multiplicative concepts that have been found to influence rational number knowledge and algebraic reasoning. The researchers and classroom teacher tiered instruction during a 5-day segment of the unit in which students worked on problems involving speed. Students were grouped relatively homogenously by multiplicative concept and experienced different number choices. Students operating at each multiplicative concept demonstrated evidence of learning, but all did not learn the same thing. We view this study as a step in supporting equitable approaches to students’ diverse ways of thinking, an… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Meaningful Mathematics: Networking Theories on Multiple Representations and Quantitative Reasoning

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This paper articulates a stance on the study of students’ meaningful mathematics understanding with multiple representations. We integrate Thompson’s theory of quantitative reasoning and Dreyfus’ theory of multiple representations in our approach to frame and conduct empirical investigations of the study of meaningful understanding of function. We provide empirical data to support our approach to examining representational fluency and functional thinking from this networked stance. Our research articulates how the coordination of theories can be productive in informing the design, conduct, and analysis of contexts aimed to understand students’ meaningful math learning with a focus on functional thinking. [For the complete proceedings, see ED606556.] Link til kilde

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Eric.ed.gov – Broken Gears: The Value Added of Higher Education on Teachers’ Academic Achievement. Policy Research Working Paper 7168

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Good teachers are essential for high-quality educational systems. However, little is known about teachers’ skills formation during college. By combining two standardized tests for Colombian students, one taken at the end of senior year in high school and the other when students are near graduation from college, this paper documents the extent to which education majors relatively improve or deteriorate their skills in quantitative reasoning, native language, and foreign language, in comparison to students in other programs. Teachers’ skills vis-à-vis those in other majors deteriorate in quantitative reasoning and foreign language, although they deteriorate less for those in math-oriented and foreign language oriented programs. For native language, there is no evidence of robust differences in relative learning mobility. An appendix contains Figure A1 and Tables A1 and… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – The Imagery Models of Mathematics Teacher Candidates on Graph of Rational and Irrational Functions

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Students of mathematics teacher candidates are required to have good math and communication skills. Therefore, students of mathematics teacher candidates need to have good imagery modalities like the rational-irrational function graph. To get the imaginary student of mathematics teacher candidate in describing the rational-irrational function graph used qualitative research method. The subjects criteria are the students of mathematics education program, pursued the real course of analysis, and have not got the material to describe the rational-irrational function graph. The research data was taken by using the task test. The data were analyzed by categorizing, looking at the independence in describing, and looking at the logic or way of thinking. The research results showed that there are ten models (5 separate models and five combined models) of students’… Continue Reading