Arthur J. Baroody , Douglas H. Clements , Julie Sarama
{"title":"Does use of a hypothetical learning progression promote learning of the cardinal-count concept and give-n performance?","authors":"Arthur J. Baroody , Douglas H. Clements , Julie Sarama","doi":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101178","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101178","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The general aim of the research was to conduct a rare test of the efficacy of hypothetical learning progressions (HLPs) and a basic assumption of basing instruction on HLPs, namely teaching each successive level is more efficacious than skipping lower levels and teaching the target level directly. The specific aim was evaluating whether counting-based cardinality concepts unfold in a stepwise manner. The research involved a pretest—delayed-posttest design with random assignment of 14 preschoolers to two conditions. The experimental intervention was based on an HLP for cardinality development (first promoting levels that presumably support and are necessary for the target level and then the target knowledge). The active-control treatment entailed a Teach-to-Target approach (first promoting irrelevant cardinality knowledge about recognizing written numbers and then directly teaching the same target-level goals with the same explicit instruction and similar games). A mix of quantitative and qualitative analyses indicated HLP participants performed significantly and substantially better than Teach-to-Target participants on target-level concept and skill measures. Moreover, the former tended to make sensible errors, whereas the latter generally responded cluelessly.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47481,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Mathematical Behavior","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101178"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142058329","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mature intuition and mathematical understanding","authors":"William D'Alessandro , Irma Stevens","doi":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101203","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101203","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Mathematicians often describe the importance of well-developed intuition to productive research and successful learning. But neither education researchers nor philosophers interested in epistemic dimensions of mathematical practice have yet given the topic the sustained attention it deserves. The trouble is partly that intuition in the relevant sense lacks a usefully clear characterization, so we begin by offering one: mature intuition, we say, is the capacity for fast, fluent, reliable and insightful inference with respect to some subject matter. We illustrate the role of mature intuition in mathematical practice with an assortment of examples, including data from a sequence of clinical interviews in which a student improves upon initially misleading covariational intuitions. Finally, we show how the study of intuition can yield insights for philosophers and education theorists. First, it contributes to a longstanding debate in epistemology by undermining <em>epistemicism</em>, the view that an agent’s degree of objectual understanding is determined exclusively by their knowledge, beliefs and credences. We argue on the contrary that intuition can contribute directly and independently to understanding. Second, we identify potential pedagogical avenues towards the development of mature intuition, highlighting strategies including <em>adding imagery</em>, <em>developing associations</em>, <em>establishing confidence</em> and <em>generalizing concepts</em>.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47481,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Mathematical Behavior","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101203"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142704875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Preservice teachers’ metacognitive process variables in modeling-related problem posing","authors":"Luisa-Marie Hartmann , Stanislaw Schukajlow , Mogens Niss , Uffe Thomas Jankvist","doi":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101195","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101195","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>For teaching mathematical modeling in schools, teachers need to create suitable problems for their students to deal with. Despite an emphasis on teaching approaches for mathematical modeling, little is known about the processes involved in posing problems based on real-world situations, referred to as modeling-related problem posing, and specifically about what has been termed “implemented anticipation” as a metacognitive process variable. To contribute to filling this research gap, this study analyzed the nature and presence of implemented anticipation among preservice teachers as they posed problems based on real-world situations. The study was conducted through qualitative research with seven preservice teachers and revealed that the decision-making process in modeling-related problem posing involves different processes of implemented anticipation, depending on the role the preservice teacher takes on. The paper discusses the implications for preparing preservice teachers to pose problems for teaching mathematical modeling.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47481,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Mathematical Behavior","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101195"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142428274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sindura Kularajan , Jennifer Czocher , Elizabeth Roan
{"title":"Quantitative operators as an analytical tool for explaining differential equation students’ construction of new quantities during modeling","authors":"Sindura Kularajan , Jennifer Czocher , Elizabeth Roan","doi":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101198","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101198","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Theories of quantitative reasoning have taken precedence as an analytical tool to interpret and describe students’ mathematical reasonings, especially as students engage in mathematical modeling tasks. These theories are particularly useful to describe how students construct new quantities as they model. However, while using this lens to analyze Differential Equations students’ construction of mathematical models of dynamic situations, we found cases of quantity construction that were not fully characterized by extant concepts. In this theory-building paper, we present five examples of such cases. Additionally, we introduce a new construct—quantitative operators—as an extended analytical tool to characterize those cases. Our findings suggest that quantitative operators may be viewed as an extension for theories of quantity construction and complementary to symbolic forms, when localizing theories of quantity construction <em>for</em> mathematical modeling, especially at the undergraduate differential equation level.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47481,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Mathematical Behavior","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101198"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142553299","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Teachers’ engagement with language practices through a geometry lesson study","authors":"Lisnet Mwadzaangati , Jill Adler","doi":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101207","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101207","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Our study focuses on teachers’ engagement with language practices through their participation in an adapted lesson study (LS) focusing on introduction to the concept of similarity and the meaning of ‘similar’ in a lesson on similar triangles. We use data from textbook analysis, lesson planning, lessons and lesson reflection sessions to explore teachers’ engagement with language practices and how these evolved over a LS cycle. Working with the notion of dilemmas in teaching as ‘sources of praxis’ (Adler, 1998), we identified inter-connected teaching dilemmas, engagement with which led to a wider use of language registers and representations in the second lesson and with these, opening opportunities for elaborating the meaning of similar triangles. We describe the dilemmas that emerged and their related language practices, evidence teachers’ engagement with these in their talk and their teaching, and argue that LS can create conditions for teachers’ learning about language practices in teaching.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47481,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Mathematical Behavior","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101207"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142704873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Undergraduate students’ collaboration on homework problems in advanced mathematics courses","authors":"Ciara Murphy, Maria Meehan","doi":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101200","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101200","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While mathematicians and mathematics education researchers have acknowledged the importance of undergraduate mathematics students’ learning outside of class time, little is known about what students actually do. The aim of this study is to examine one aspect of students’ out-of-class learning: their collaboration with peers on homework problems. Ten interviews with recent graduates of mathematics degrees were conducted and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. We examine participants’ descriptions of how they collaborated on homework problems and with whom. Additionally, we explore their perceptions of the affordances of collaborating on homework, as well as the factors they perceive as constraining their engagement in the practice. Our study is an initial step towards developing a more complete understanding of undergraduate mathematics students’ engagement with homework problems and out-of-class learning practices more generally. We discuss the implications of our findings in terms of guiding future research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47481,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Mathematical Behavior","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101200"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142578129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Secondary teachers’ guided reinvention of the definitions of reducible and irreducible elements","authors":"Kaitlyn Stephens Serbin , Younggon Bae , Sthefanía Espinosa","doi":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101188","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101188","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Informed by Realistic Mathematics Education, we designed a hypothetical learning trajectory on graduate students’ guided reinvention of reducible and irreducible elements in rings. We created experientially real context problems for use in a teaching experiment, in which secondary in-service and pre-service teachers used algebra tiles as an emergent model of factoring integers and quadratics in <span><math><mrow><mi>Z</mi><mrow><mfenced><mrow><mi>x</mi></mrow></mfenced></mrow></mrow></math></span>. In their mathematical activity, this became the teachers’ model for abstracting the shared structure of (ir)reducible elements in <span><math><mi>Z</mi></math></span> and <span><math><mrow><mi>Z</mi><mo>[</mo><mi>x</mi><mo>]</mo></mrow></math></span>, which they used to formally define (ir)reducible elements. In this paper, we discuss the progression of the teachers’ reasoning and defining activities that were evident as they reinvented the definitions of reducible and irreducible elements of integral domains.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47481,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Mathematical Behavior","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101188"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142167339","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Encouraging students to explain their ideas when learning mathematics: A psychological perspective","authors":"Bethany Rittle-Johnson","doi":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101192","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101192","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Children’s <em>self-explanations</em> are answers to voiced why and how questions that attempt to make sense of new information for oneself. They often are not sophisticated or generalizable. Despite this, prompting children to generate explanations often improves their learning. After providing examples of children’s explanations, this article summarizes empirical evidence for the learning benefits of prompting people to generate explanations when learning mathematics. There is strong evidence that prompting learners to explain leads to greater conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge and procedural transfer when knowledge is assessed immediately after the learning session; there is limited evidence for greater procedural transfer after a delay. Scaffolding high-quality explanations via training or structured responses, designing prompts to carefully balance attention to important content, prompting learners to explain correct information, and prompting learners to explain why incorrect information is incorrect when appropriate, increases the benefits of prompts to generate explanations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47481,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Mathematical Behavior","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101192"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0732312324000695/pdfft?md5=da899ecf252efeddeeea91ce27ec15c7&pid=1-s2.0-S0732312324000695-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142314687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jessica Gehrtz , Jess Ellis Hagman , Victoria Barron
{"title":"Engagement with student written work as an instantiation of and proxy for how college calculus instructors engage with student thinking","authors":"Jessica Gehrtz , Jess Ellis Hagman , Victoria Barron","doi":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101187","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101187","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Teachers who use student thinking to make instructional decisions tend to create more positive learning experiences for students and support conceptual understanding. Looking at student work is one way college instructors learn about student thinking. We interviewed eight calculus instructors to investigate what they noticed when examining student work. Reflexive thematic analysis allowed us to classify instructors by the stance they adopted when looking at student work. Instructors who adopted an evaluative stance responded by providing examples or explaining how to solve the problem, often taking on the intellectual work of solving the problem. Instructors who adopted an interpretive stance responded by providing examples or asking guiding questions informed by the student’s thinking. We then extended our analyses to illustrate two instructional archetypes (Interpreter and Evaluator), to highlight how the stance taken when examining student work can serve as a proxy for how instructors engage with student thinking more broadly.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47481,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Mathematical Behavior","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101187"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0732312324000646/pdfft?md5=79808339f06402b0a6a1c331e5c9fa74&pid=1-s2.0-S0732312324000646-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142147683","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rachel Rupnow , Rosaura Uscanga , Anna Marie Bergman , Cassandra Mohr
{"title":"Snapshots of sameness: Characterizations of mathematical sameness across student groups","authors":"Rachel Rupnow , Rosaura Uscanga , Anna Marie Bergman , Cassandra Mohr","doi":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101193","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jmathb.2024.101193","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sameness is foundational to mathematics but has only recently become an area of focus in mathematics education research. In this paper, we describe characterizations of sameness generated by four student groups: discrete mathematics students, linear algebra students, abstract algebra students, and graduate students. Based on qualitative analysis of open response surveys, we compare these groups’ characterizations of sameness; note the subcomponents discussed and variation within each dimension; and highlight experiences influential to students’ perceptions of sameness. Findings include interpretability of sameness as a big idea, nascent development of thematic connections across courses, emphases on current course material rather than connections to prior courses for students solicited from a particular course, greater reflectiveness from the graduate student group, and abstract algebra as an impactful course. Implications include a need for thoughtful examinations of how “big ideas” develop among students and what experiences might support such development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47481,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Mathematical Behavior","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101193"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142428275","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}