Improve Mathematics Education Research Articles

Supporting evidence use in networked professional learning: the role of the middle leader

Background: In Canada, contemporary collaborative professional learning models for educators utilise multiple forms of evidence to inform practice. Commonly, two forms of evidence are prioritised: (a) research-based evidence and (b) classroom-based evidence of student learning. In Ontario, the integration of these two forms of evidence within professional learning is increasingly facilitated by ‘middle leaders’ – school district level educators who support system change through sustained school- and classroom-embedded professional development with teachers.Purpose: This study investigated the role of the middle leader in supporting teachers’ use of research- and classroom-based evidence within the context of collaborative professional learning. It was guided by the following research questions: (a) What is the capacity of middle leaders to use research- and classroom-based evidence within professional learning contexts? (b) What challenges do middle leaders encounter in using research- and classroom-based evidence within professional learning contexts? and (c) How do middle leaders develop their capacity for evidence use within professional learning contexts?Programme Description: The context for this study was a three-year networked professional learning project that included nine school districts in Ontario, Canada. An evidence-based collaborative inquiry approach was used to explore the common goal of improving mathematics teaching and learning across the nine districts.Participants: A purposeful sample of 30 middle leaders (i.e. system facilitators) and 54 teachers (36 Primary/Junior school teachers [student ages 4–11] and 18 Intermediate/Senior school teachers [student ages 12–18]) across the nine school districts was selected based on these educators’ high degree of engagement in the project and willingness to participate in data collection. System facilitators were relative experts in mathematics instruction and provided differentiated and embedded support in mathematics pedagogy to school inquiry teams (i.e. school administrators and selected teachers), responsive to their local needs and goals.Design and Methods: A qualitative approach was used, comprising focus groups conducted at the end of each project year with study participants. Data collection yielded 27 system facilitator focus groups (nine per year) and 27 teacher focus groups (also nine per year), each transcribed verbatim.Findings: Standard thematic coding of focus group data was used to elucidate four emergent themes across system facilitators and teachers: (a) realising the need for data literacy in the construction of classroom evidence, (b) challenges to evidence use, (c) support enabling evidence use and (d) changing attitudes about evidence. Overall, findings indicated that both middle leaders and teachers required data literacy to use, successfully, classroom evidence within a collaborative inquiry. Although middle leaders encountered challenges to facilitating teachers’ classroom evidence use in collaborative inquiry, they developed their own data literacy through regular cross-district middle leader learning sessions and targeted support from pedagogical and research experts. While both middle leaders and teachers shifted their attitudes and practices with respect to classroom evidence use within the project, this finding did not extend to their critical interrogation of research evidence sources (i.e. research literacy).Conclusions: Middle leaders play a central role in promoting evidence use within networked collaborative professional learning. Diverse strategies are needed to support middle leaders’ use of both research- and classroom-based evidence throughout collaborative inquiry cycles, to inform and monitor classroom, school, district and regional impacts. While increased data literacy may enhance educators’ use of classroom evidence, it may not directly impact their uptake of research to inform their collaborative inquiries.

Developing collective capacity to improve mathematics instruction: Coaching as a lever for school-wide improvement

Mathematics coaching, as typically practiced in US schools tends to be responsive and individually focused work in which coaches respond to invitations from individual teachers to help them improve their teaching. But what does the work of coaching look like if it is organized instead to engage teachers collectively in service of school-wide improvement? This is the question we take up in this paper through examining the case of one school-based elementary mathematics coach whose work more closely aligned with emerging findings in the field of instructional improvement about the power of coaching for school-wide reform. The coach helped to dramatically transform a recent history of poor performance and deficit-oriented narratives pertaining to the school and its children. Through a fine-grain analysis, we illustrate the coach’s work implicated in supporting groups of teachers to come to mutual understanding around and further development of shared high-quality instructional practices. The components of coaching that help support collective capacity are discussed.

LATENT CLUSTER ANALYSIS OF INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES REPORTED BY HIGH- AND LOW-PERFORMING MATHEMATICS TEACHERS IN FOUR COUNTRIES

Using Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2011 eighth-grade international dataset, this study explored the profiles of instructional practices reported by high- and low-performing mathematics teachers across the US, Finland, Korea, and Russia. Concepts of conceptual teaching and procedural teaching were used to frame the design of the current study. Latent cluster analysis was applied in the investigation of the profiles of mathematics teachers’ instructional practices across the four education systems. It was found that all mathematics teachers in the high- and low-performing groups used procedurally as well as conceptually oriented practices in their teaching. However, one group of high-performing mathematics teachers from the U.S. sample and all the high-performing teachers from Finland, Korea, and Russia showed more frequent use of conceptually oriented practices than their corresponding low-performing teachers. Another group of U.S. high-performing mathematics teachers showed a distinctive procedurally oriented pattern, which presented a rather different picture. Such results provide useful suggestions for practitioners and policy makers in their effort to improve mathematics teaching and learning in the US and in other countries as well. DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.22342/jme.8.2.4066.115-132

Teacher Evaluation and Improving Mathematics Instruction: A Change Model for Implementing Productive Feedback

Teacher Evaluation and Improving Mathematics Instruction: A Change Model for Implementing Productive Feedback

義務教育の算数・数学教育の改善について

義務教育の算数・数学教育の改善について

How does lesson study improve mathematics instruction?

This article presents a theoretical model of lesson study’s impact on instruction, through intervening impact on teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and dispositions, teachers’ learning community, and curriculum. It also describes four different types of lesson study in Japan, pointing out their synergies in producing a system where local teachers “demand” knowledge for their lesson study work and lesson study provides a collaborative, practice-based venue to try out recent innovations in curriculum and instruction. Description of lesson study in Japan provides background for considering the articles of this issue, which highlight four strategies to develop lesson study outside Japan: (1) incorporation of high-quality tasks and materials; (2) attention to processes that illuminate student thinking; (3) attention to system features; and (4) models for scale-up.

Improving mathematics instruction and supporting teacher learning in Korea through lesson study using five practices

Given the effect of lesson study on improving the quality of mathematics instruction and supporting teachers’ professional development, this paper describes how a lesson study using five practices for mathematics discussion was implemented in the Korean context. This paper then analyzes how the lessons were changed through the lesson study cycle and what the participating teachers learned through lesson study. The results showed that the lessons were changed to specify learning goals for students, to devise mathematical tasks in a rigorous and meaningful way, and to design the lesson structure to maximize students’ engagement. The results also demonstrated that the lessons were enhanced by implementing the five practices. Whereas the anticipating practice was well-implemented from the beginning of the lesson study cycle, the connecting practice was fully established only in the final phase of the cycle. The participating teachers learned the importance of detailed lesson planning, realized the complexity of teaching practices, and developed a better understanding of how to utilize students’ ideas. Building on these results, it is expected that they will expand our understanding of lesson study and facilitate international dialogue regarding the professional development of in-service mathematics teachers.

Improving Mathematics Teaching in Kindergarten with Realistic Mathematical Education

The present study investigates and compares the influence of teaching Realistic Mathematics on the development of mathematical competence in kindergarten. The sample consisted of 231 Greek kindergarten students. For the implementation of the survey, we conducted an intervention, which included one experimental and one control group. Children in the experimental group were taught Realistic Mathematics according to the principles of Realistic Mathematics Education. The control group was taught mathematics following the basic pedagogical principles of curriculum for kindergarten students. In order to evaluate the mathematical performance of children we used the Test of Early Mathematics Ability (TEMA-3). The results showed that the teaching technique with the use of Realistic Mathematic Education contributed significantly to the development of mathematical competence of young children. Moreover, factors such as gender, age and nonverbal cognitive ability, did not seem to differentiate the development of mathematical competence of children.

Dynamic Geometry Systems in Mathematics Education: Attitudes of Teachers

Abstract At present, the innovative trends in education are also often associated with the integration of ICT into the teaching process. The relationship between mathematics, teaching and computers are long-standing and complex. The actual practice of mathematics has changed its nature considerably because of the availability of powerful computers, both in the workplace and on researches’ desks. Several software systems are available for mathematics teachers, among which have dynamic geometry systems a significant presence. Although various forms of education for teachers are currently organized and teachers have at their disposal a variety of learning materials and ideas for teaching, it is questionable to what extent these factors are reflected in school practice. The article describes a survey which was aimed to assess the state of the use of dynamic geometry systems in mathematics teaching at elementary and secondary schools and to find out teachers’ views about suitability and possibilities of using it to improve mathematics education. The survey was conducted by questionnaire and subsequently also by interviews with teachers.

The Influence of Mathematics Anxiety in Middle and High School Students Math Achievement

<p class="apa">Math anxiety has been the focus of much psychological and educational research in the past few years, there are many international studies showing that mathematics anxiety is an influence on student’s achievements in school, but little research has been done about this issue in Bahrain. Bahrain is a country in the Arabian Gulf region, its economic development is increasing rapidly, and there is currently a focus on improving the school education outcomes to fit the 21st century requirements. Bahrain started a huge curriculum project in September 2013 by changing the primary math curriculum across the country, and will continue the changes to secondary curriculum in the coming years. These changes are intended to improve mathematics education in the country, since Bahraini math scores have been below the international mean for a very long time. This study attempts to investigate if there is a relationship between anxiety and underachieving in mathematics in Bahrain. The Revised Mathematics Anxiety (R-MANX) Survey (Bursal, 2006) was translated into Arabic and administered to 1352 primary students. The data was analyzed to explore the reliability and validity of the translated survey and the associations between Mathematics anxiety and achievement. This paper reports the findings of the study.</p>

Flip or Flop: Are Math Teachers Using Khan Academy as Envisionedby Sal Khan?

Khan Academy (KA) is a free web-based intelligent tutor, which has been featured in countless media outlets for its potential to change mathematics instruction. The founder and executive director, Salman Khan, recommends that KA be used to personalize instruction, freeing up class time for engaging high yield activities like student discourse and meaningful collaborative projects (Gupta, 2012; Khan, 2012; Markus, 2011). Teachers have begun to use KA to flip classroom instruction. This study examined how KA was used as a tool for instruction in middle and high school mathematics classrooms. The five participants reported that the uses of KA conflicted with Khan’s vision of how his program should be used and with widely accepted effective teaching strategies (2012). Nevertheless, the participants believed that Khan Academy has the potential to improve mathematics instruction due to its accessibility and its individualized learning environment.

Self-determination and STEM education: Effects of autonomy, motivation, and self-regulated learning on high school math achievement

To improve mathematics education and achievement, research needs to identify factors that support and motivate students to learn and achieve in math.The purpose of this study was to test, using structural equations, a model with a sample of 1412 high-school students where autonomy would predict autonomous motivation, which in turn, has a positive effect on effort regulation and deep-processing, and both variables would predict math achievement.Results confirmed all hypothesized paths, except deep-processing unexpectedly did not predict math achievement.Findings suggest that when students feel that their schoolwork is purposeful and interesting, and that the classroom environment and teachers are responsive and supportive, they will be autonomously motivated to engage in self-regulated learning. Autonomous motivation propels students to engage in deep-processing of information and to persist and exert effort in their studies even when the school subject or studying becomes boring or taxing. Self-regulation of effort ultimately results in enhanced mathematics achievement.

2015 문·이과 통합형 교육과정 개정에 관한 전문가 인식 연구

Abstract The purpose of this research is to analyze the recognition of the curriculum experts on 2015 integrated liberal arts and natural sciences curriculum revision. Research method is a delphi survey and the subjects are curriculum experts. The research results are as follows. Firstly, experts suggested common education for all students and students’ opportunities to choose subjects. Secondly, the direction of curriculum revision was different by school level. The elementary school needs to foster convergence thinking. The middle school needs to educate common basic literacy education and the high school needs both the common education and the free choice of subjects by students. Thirdly, the separation of the liberal arts and natural sciences was caused by the separate thinking of custom, tradition and study and the separate exam application on liberal arts and natural science of college scholastic ability test. The solution about separation problem of liberal arts and natural sciences have been proposed to improve mathematics education and teachers’ convergence education competency. Lastly, for the establishment of an 2015, integrated curriculum the reduction of the CSAT test area and the introduction of qualifying examination for English were required. Key words : Curriculum revision, Primary school curriculum, Middle school curriculum, High school curriculum, Delphi survey researchCorresponding author: 053-950-5875, meleejr@hanmail.net Kang, Hyeon-Suk et al.(2015) , .

Research–Practice Partnerships to Support the Development of High Quality Mathematics Instruction for All Students

The gap in achievement in mathematics between at-risk students and their more advantaged counterparts is a persistent problem of the U.S. education system. Although some research-based curricula and pedagogy have demonstrated promise in supporting students from diverse backgrounds to develop conceptual understanding and procedural fluency in mathematics, scaling up instructional change across a district organization is a significant challenge. The Middle School Mathematics and the Institutional Setting of Teaching (MIST) Project is a research–practice partnership seeking to understand how large urban school districts can support the development of rigorous and equitable middle-school mathematics instruction at scale. This article enumerates the goals and design of this multiyear, multidistrict partnership, and describes one illustrative example of how our partnership activities informed and supported one district's efforts to improve mathematics instruction over multiple years. General recommendations for district–researcher partnerships are discussed.

Can teachers accurately predict student performance?

In two studies, we examined the effect of professional development to improve mathematics instruction on the accuracy of teachers' monitoring of student learning. Study 1 was conducted with 36 teachers participating in three years of professional development. Judgment accuracy was influenced by the fidelity with which what was learned in the professional development. Study 2 was conducted with 64 teachers from 8 schools, which were randomly assigned to receive professional development or serve as a control. Judgment accuracy was greater for teachers receiving professional development than for teachers who did not and teachers were better to predict students' computational skills.

Common Core State Standards in the Middle Grades: What's New in the Geometry Domain and How Can Teachers Support Student Learning?

The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) is a primary focus of attention for many stakeholders' (e.g., teachers, district mathematics leaders, and curriculum developers) intent on improving mathematics education. This article reports on specific content shifts related to the geometry domain in the middle grades (6–8) mathematics curriculum. The methodology employed allows for comparisons of content across multiple standards documents. We report on some dramatic changes with regards to the geometry content taught in the middle grades. We found 52% of the middle grades geometry CCSSM learning expectations will be new to the respective grade level at which they are taught in at least six of the eight states analyzed in this study (57% in grade 6, 50% in grade 7, and 50% in grade 8). We also highlight three areas that represent “new” geometry content at the middle grades based on our analysis of CCSSM and pre‐CCSSM state standards.

Quality Mathematics Instructional Practices Contributing to Student Achievements in Five High-Achieving Asian Education Systems: An Analysis Using TIMSS 2011 Data

Although teaching quality is seen as crucial in affecting students’ performance, what types of instructional practices constitute quality teaching remains a question. With the theoretical assumptions of conceptual and procedural mathematics teaching as a guide, this study examined the types of quality mathematics instructional practices that affect students’ mathematics learning across five high-performing Asian education systems using the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2011 dataset. It found that no combinations of the components of conceptual and procedural mathematics teaching practices exist consistently across the five education systems. Results from the study provide important implications for practitioners and policy makers regarding how to improve mathematics teaching and learning in these Asian education systems as well as elsewhere.

Quality Mathematics Instructional Practices Contributing to Student Achievements in Five High-Achieving Asian Education Systems: An Analysis Using TIMSS 2011 Data

Although teaching quality is seen as crucial in affecting students’ performance, what types of instructional practices constitute quality teaching remains a question. With the theoretical assumptions of conceptual and procedural mathematics teaching as a guide, this study examined the types of quality mathematics instructional practices that affect students’ mathematics learning across five high-performing Asian education systems using the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2011 dataset. It found that no combinations of the components of conceptual and procedural mathematics teaching practices exist consistently across the five education systems. Results from the study provide important implications for practitioners and policy makers regarding how to improve mathematics teaching and learning in these Asian education systems as well as elsewhere.

The NCTM Research Presession: A Brief History and Reflection

For roughly 35 years, the NCTM Research Presession has been held 1 or 2 days prior to the NCTM Annual Conference—hence the wordpresession. Beginning with the 2014 meeting in New Orleans, the NCTM Research Presession will be rebranded as the NCTM Research Conference. This change of name is intended to emphasize the critical role that research should play in our efforts to improve mathematics education. The NCTM Research Committee thought this an appropriate occasion to invite Richard Lesh, who was instrumental in the founding of the Research Presession, to join the members of the current Research Committee in reflecting on its formation, the hopes he and other kindred spirits had in mind when they started it, and the current state and future of research in our field.

A Mathematics Teacher’s Journey of Identity Construction and Change

Despite some gains, improving mathematics instruction remains an area of concern in the United States. The implementation of the Common Core Standards and the challenge of teaching the 21 st Century student require mathematics teachers to examine their pedagogy to determine if they need to change or improve their practices. This paper provides a personal account of my journey when determining my identity as a mathematics teacher and how constructing my identity helped in changing and improving my practices as a mathematics teacher. The study was done using autoethnography, a burgeoning research method, and identity theory. This study has the goals of giving voice to the classroom teacher and providing a practical method for improving instruction. The findings indicate that my identity is composed of many facets, and my identity is a key factor underlying who I am as a mathematics teacher. The findings also resulted in the development of the Math Madness Model (M 3 ) Instrument, which can facilitate self-studies by other mathematics