eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The new common core standards for mathematics demand that students (and teachers!) exhibit deeper conceptual understanding. That’s music to the ears of education professor John Tapper, who says teachers have overemphasized teaching procedures–and getting right answers. In his new book, “Solving for Why,” he makes a powerful case for moving beyond right and wrong and exploring what students understand, where they are struggling, and most important, why they are struggling. The author talked with Tapper about concrete-representational abstract assessments, or CRA, a tool that does just that. It’s easy to do, and it provides a sophisticated portrait of kids’ models for mathematical concepts. That ties in with the Core, and with Tapper’s call for teachers to focus on the learner. Link til kilde
Like this:
Like Loading...
eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Since established by an Appropriations Act in 2006, the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) competitive grant program in the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) has supported human capital strategies “to ensure that students attending high-poverty schools have better access to effective teachers and principals, especially in hard-to-staff subject areas” such as science and math. Responding to the national agenda to improve STEM education, in 2012, the fourth cohort of the Teacher Incentive Fund federal grant competition (TIF4) included special consideration for projects designed to improve STEM education by identifying, developing, and utilizing master teachers as leaders of broader improvements (OESE, 2012a). A human capital approach to strengthening STEM education addressed the TIF4 project schools’ need for high-quality supports for student learning, and the systemic challenges to teacher retention,… Continue Reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Utah SB 196 from the 2015 General Session challenged the State Board of Regents with increasing the number of students who complete their General Education Quantitative Literacy (QL) requirement senior year of high school. One thing needed to meet this goal: more Concurrent Enrollment Mathematics instructors. Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) math departments developed robust professional development programs to engage new educators in the Math 1030, 1040, and 1050 curriculum, more Concurrent Enrollment (CE) QL Math options have been made available, and the number of students completing their QL requirement through CE has increased as a result of SB 196 initiatives. To evaluate the strength of these efforts to involve public educators with Level 4 Mathematics endorsements, USHE analyzed data on the performance of students who… Continue Reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Do young children naturally develop the foundations of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)? And if so, should we build on these foundations by using STEM curricula in preschools? In this article, Douglas Clements and Julie Sarama argue that the answer to both these questions is yes. First, the authors show that young children possess a sophisticated informal knowledge of math, and that they frequently ask scientific questions, such as “why” questions. Preschoolers’ free play involves substantial amounts of foundational math as they explore patterns, shapes, and spatial relations; compare magnitudes; and count objects. Moreover, preschool and kindergarten children’s knowledge of and interest in math and science predicts later success in STEM. And not only in STEM: the authors show that early math knowledge also predicts later… Continue Reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
eric.ed.gov har udgivet: It has been a decade since the article “Math Links: Building Learning Communities in Urban Settings” (referenced throughout as Math Links) was published in the inaugural issue of the “Journal of Urban Mathematics Education” (“JUME”; Leonard & Evans, 2008). The Math Links study, as reported in that article, investigated teacher interns’ attitudes and beliefs about their interactions with urban students in a community-based setting. In that article, it was acknowledged that changing teacher attitudes and beliefs can be challenging, but nonetheless accomplished. The goal for the teacher interns was to transform attitudes and beliefs about teaching mathematics to urban students from routine and decontextualized ways to classroom practices in which culturally based and social justice oriented methods framed instruction. Here, we reflect on that work for the… Continue Reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In 1999, Richard Lee Colvin published an article in “The School Administrator” titled “Math Wars: Tradition vs. Real-World Applications” that described the pendulum swing of mathematics education reform. On one side are those who advocate for computational fluency, with a step-by-step emphasis on numbers and skills and the algebra-geometry-trigonometry-calculus sequence. On the other side are those who think students must engage with real-world problems that employ a variety of mathematical disciplines and deep learning of math concepts that comes from struggling with complex problems, comparing multiple solution paths, and learning from trial and error. To understand what it will take to bring the two sides of the mathematics debate together, first consider the approach each side takes to improve student achievement. One side wants to focus mostly… Continue Reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE), with support from Lumina Foundation, investigated whether the use of Khan Academy could increase community college student success in developmental math coursework, support embedded math content in technical courses, and prepare students to take or retake college placement tests. Khan Academy, an Open Educational Resource (OER), is a nonprofit organization that provides free online educational resources such as practice exercises, instructional videos and a personalized learning dashboard that empowers learners to study at their own pace in and out of the classroom. Pilot community colleges used Khan Academy’s math content as a supplement in various developmental education delivery models, including flipped, blended, self-paced, modular and traditional developmental education classrooms, as well as in some career and technical courses. A… Continue Reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Preservice elementary teachers hold a variety of beliefs about mathematics and mathematics learning, which influence their teaching. Previous research has shown that preservice elementary teachers believe that mathematics is doing arithmetic. However, it is unclear if preservice elementary teachers truly believe that mathematics is only arithmetic, or if they simply have a difficult time describing their views on mathematics. In this study, preservice elementary teachers were asked to provide metaphors for mathematics and mathematics learning in order to illuminate the preservice teachers’ beliefs about mathematics. The metaphors were analyzed to reveal twelve different categories of belief. Approximately one-fourth of the metaphors suggested negative views about mathematics and mathematics learning. Approximately 44% of the metaphors described mathematics and mathematics learning as something that one must engage in as… Continue Reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This paper reports on a design-based implementation study of the use of a diagnostic classroom assessment tool framed on learning trajectories (LTs) for middle grades mathematics, where teachers and students are provided immediate data on students’ progress along LTs. The study answers the question: “How can one characterize the challenges encountered when a school implements a diagnostic assessment system around learning trajectories at scale?” by identifying three explanatory themes: shifting to classroom assessment, understanding the concept and content of the LT, and seeing the results as a call to action. Each theme is discussed with references to observed activities and discussions with participants and related to the challenges connected with taking the concept of LTs to scale. [For the complete proceedings, see ED606556.] Link til kilde
Like this:
Like Loading...
eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Successful implementation of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS-M) should result in noticeable differences in primary and middle school math classrooms across the United States. “Common Core Math in the K-8 Classroom: Results from a National Teacher Survey” takes a close look at how educators are implementing the Common Core math standards in classrooms across the nation. A nationally representative survey of over one thousand teachers reveals that they are increasingly familiar with the Common Core and believe that it will benefit students. Yet findings also point to several areas that warrant mid-course corrections if the standards are going fulfill more rigorous expectations. Takeaways include the following: (1) Teachers like the Common Core but they don’t think all of their students and parents are equally… Continue Reading →
Like this:
Like Loading...
Læst 7 gange