Individualized Instruction In Mathematics Research Articles

How does the modern home environment impact children's mathematics knowledge? Evidence from Canadian elementary children's digital home numeracy practice (DHNP)

AbstractBackgroundA strong knowledge of mathematics, beginning at the elementary level, is critical for participation in today's complex world. The home may be one way to facilitate individualized mathematics instruction, given that children spend more time at home than in an academic institution. Therefore, researchers are interested to see whether the home numeracy environment (HNE) can provide a solid foundation for children's mathematics understanding. Further, children's digital mathematics exploration at home is increasingly common (e.g., using math apps).ObjectivesThe present study evaluates the digital home numeracy practice (DHNP) model and explores its effect on children's mathematics knowledge across five domains (numeration, number operation, pattern recognition, spatial sense, and applied problem‐solving).MethodsTo conduct this study, 117 Canadian parents and their children from Grade 1 through 5 completed a DHNP survey and a range of in‐person mathematics measures.Results and ConclusionsThe results identified significant relations between parents and children's implicit mathematics factors (e.g., math anxiety, motivation). Children's mathematics anxiety and parents' academic estimations and expectations for their children positively predicted children's mathematics knowledge. In terms of DHNP components, parental involvement in DHNP predicted children's numeration and applied problem‐solving knowledge.ImplicationsTaken together, the results detail the contribution of parental and child factors to children's mathematics knowledge and suggest that parents adjust their role in DHNP according to their children's mathematics ability.

Exploring the Role of Elementary Teachers’ TPACK in the Adoption of 1:1 Computing Across Subject areas

This study examines the role that technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) plays in elementary teachers' adoption of 1:1 computing for instruction across the subject areas of mathematics, science, English language arts, and social studies. In particular, the research explored whether teachers' self-reported TPACK moderated the relationship between teachers' perceived ease of use (PEOU) and perceived usefulness (PU) of 1:1 computing for instruction in each of the subject areas. The results indicated that TPACK was a significant moderator of the relationships between PEOU of 1:1 and whole-class science instruction, individualized science instruction, and individualized mathematics instruction. TPACK was also a significant moderator of the relationship between PU of 1:1 and the use of 1:1 for whole-class science instruction and individualized mathematics. TPACK was not a significant moderator of the relationships between PEOU or PU and instruction involving 1:1 in the subjects of English language arts or social studies. These findings suggest that TPACK can strengthen elementary teachers' adoption of 1: 1 for instruction in mathematics and science, but did not support this notion in English language arts or social studies.

Individualized Instructional Delivery Options: Adapting Technology-Based Interventions for Students With Attention Difficulties

Students who demonstrate mathematics difficulties (MDs) in the early grades are at risk of poor educational outcomes. Fortunately, strategic early mathematics intervention programs can improve academic outcomes for students with MDs, and instructional technology has demonstrated promise in delivering targeted and individualized mathematics instruction. However, it is unclear whether instructional technology is effective for all students, and there is a dearth of research on adaptations to technology-based interventions for students with difficulties attending to instruction. To this end, the current study investigated functional relations between the use of targeted instructional cueing and self-regulation support features in an iPad-based mathematics program and improved response accuracy for kindergarten students. Results presented here suggest a functional relation between the provision of instructional cueing and self-regulation support features and improved response accuracy for students who participated in an iPad-based mathematics intervention program. Implications for early mathematics instruction and technology-based intervention development are discussed.

Parents: A Ready Resource

“I never seem to reach every student when I am teaching mathematics.” “There is never enough time for practicing mathematics skills.” These laments by typical elementary school teachers are both real and abundant. Teachers would love to have more time and more help to work with students individually on developing and mastering mathematics skills. Involving parents in working with their children in mathematics is a ready method of obtaining an extra resource for teachers when individualizing mathematics instruction.

Cooperative Learning and Individualized Instruction

If you have been involved in education since the early 1970s, you have witnessed a dramatic turn of events: the rise and fall of individualized mathematics instruction (Rothrock 1982).

Research Report: Individualizing Mathematics Instruction

Mathematics teachers at all levels are faced with the problem of providing instruction for classes of (usually twenty to thirty-five) students who have differing backgrounds, abilities, interests, and learning styles. In response to this universal and perennial problem, educators have devised various ways to organize the classroom, the instructional approach, and the curriculum better to accommodate these individual differences. Willoughby (1976), for example, describes twenty approaches to individualizing mathematics instruction, some of which replace traditional teacher-directed instruction, whereas others only supplement it. Research provides some guidance concerning the effectiveness of many of these approaches.

Individualized mathematics instruction

AbstractWhen attrition rates in many community college classes soar, modularized individualized study allows a larger percentage of students to achieve a degree of success.

Meeting mathematical needs in the middle grades

I have always thought that the idea of individualized instruction was a good one but its problems have also always seemed overwhelming. I have been teaching long enough to know that the best teachers are not those who are hassled by innumerable details. I also know how hard it is to keep detailed records of what each student does during each class. I have found that the main drawback of most individualized programs is that they necessitate records impossible to keep, encourage martyrdom, and keep teachers so busy managing that there is no time left for planning good lessions. I am increasingly aware that for some children there are many advantages within the traditional classroom structure and that individualized programs make little or no provision for class or group instruction. I wanted to find an organizational plan for individualizing mathematics instruction that could integrate both styles and still be simple and functional. There are many possibilities but this is the one that worked for me.

Dialogue: Research on Individualized Instruction

As A result of the growing interest in individualized instruction, the Mathematics Teacher included in its May 1976 issue two reviews of research and a collection of classroom-tested techniques for individualizing mathematics instruction.

Individualized Mathematics Instruction

Individualized Mathematics Instruction

Self-Paced Mathematics Instruction: How Effective Has It Been in Secondary And Postsecondary Schools?

The May 1972 issue of the Mathematics Teacher contained eight articles dealing with individualizing mathematics instruction. Most of the articles discussed a modular, self-paced approach to individualization. Since that time a substantial amount of research testing the effectiveness of such programs has been reported. This paper is a review of studies comparing self-paced, individualized programs with other teaching approaches at the secondary and post-secondary levels. A recent review of similar studies conducted with elementary school students showed that the results were overwhelmingly against individualized instruction as measured by mathematics achievement, with some ambiguity on attitude and other affective measures (Schoen 1975). Do these negative findings continue into secondary school and beyond? Mathematics teachers at these levels will find the results summarized here very informative, especially if they are considering adopting an individualized program.

Self-paced mathematics instruction: how effective has it been?

The January 1972, issue of the Arithmetic Teacher was devoted to individualizing mathematics instruction in the elementary schools. Most of the articles in that issue dealt with self-paced, modularized approaches to individualization. Proponents of this approach have argued that mathematics achievement is increased, or at least not decreased, and that gains in the affective domain far outweigh the extra cost and teacher effort needed to implement a self-paced program. To date very little research testing this argument has appeared in educational journals. However, nearly one hundred recent unpublished studies, mostly doctoral dissertations, have been conducted in which the effectiveness of a self-paced mathematics program was examined. Studies that compared a self-paced program with traditional approaches to mathematics instruction in the elementary school have been summarized in another paper (Schoen 1975[a]). The major findings in that summary and some further studies that help to explain those findings will be included here. Due to space limitations, the individual studies will not all be cited. The interested reader may refer to the longer paper just cited.

Problems in Empirical Research on Individualized Mathematics Programs

Suggests a conceptual framework having implications for future research on individualized mathematics instruction.

Individualized Mathematics Instruction through a System of Continuous Progress

The word in secondary education today is to “individualize” instruction. Attend any education convention and check the sectionals dealing with the topics of “continuous progress” or “individualized instruction” and my observation will probably be borne out. At Kennedy High School in Bloomington, we have done things along these lines that I believe are in part unique and that may prove informative and error-saving to other teachers considering this type of an individualized program.

Things you can try: A model for using diagnosis in individualizing mathematics instruction in the elementary school classroom

A revolution in mathematics instruction has begun and will probably continue through this decade. The revolution consists of a major change in the elementary school teacher's role in the educative process. The teacher of elementary school mathematics is modifying his traditional role as “director” and “lesson planner” for classroom-sized groups and is assuming the role of “instructional programmer” for individual learners. In assuming this role, the elementary mathematics teacher's concern has shifted to exercising more control over the instructional environment by arranging scope, sequence, content, feedback, evaluation, and materials appropriate for individual learners.

New Programs

The Mathematics System Laboratory of the San Fernando Valley State College Trainers of Teacher Trainers Program is a special con-figuration of teachers and teacher-training personnel working in a laboratory classroom setting that, includes computer hardware and special mathematics-instruction equipment, It is designed to be housed on site at junior and senior high schools, with a flow of regular classroom students learning in new and innovative ways the mathematics curriculum of the public schools. The importance of the Mathematics System Laboratory Program lies not merely in its potential for innovation in modes of individualized mathematics instruction but in the innovative patterns of teacher training and training of teacher trainers for which the labora-tory concept calls.