The effects of the integration of mathematics within children\u27s literature on early numeracy skills of young children with disabilities

Math skills are critical for future success in school (Eccles, 1997), as school-entry math knowledge is the strongest predictor of later academic achievement (Claessens, Duncan, & Engel, 2009). Researchers have found that teachers of young children spend less time teaching mathematics than other subject areas (Phillips & Meloy, 2012), and there is a lack of formal early mathematics instruction for young children’s understanding of early numeracy (Chard et al., 2008). However, preschoolers are developmentally ready for mathematics and are more able to learn math concepts than previously believed (Balfanz, Ginsburg, & Greenes, 2003). While there is a recent increase of literature on math with young children, there is a scarcity of research related to young children with disabilities in the field of mathematics, particularly utilizing evidence based interventions. The current study investigates one intervention integrating mathematics within children’s literature for preschoolers with disabilities. This study was a quasi-experimental group design, with one treatment group and one comparison group (N = 50 participants). Targeted early numeracy skills included: (1) one-to-one correspondence, (2) quantity comparison, and (3) numeral identification. The 20-minute intervention was conducted three days per week for six weeks; the comparison group received a typical small group storybook reading of the same literature book with no elaborations. The Test of Early Mathematics Ability, Third Edition (TEMA-3; Ginsburg & Baroody, 2003) was used as a pre and post standardized assessment, and analyzed using one-way ANCOVAs controlling for pretest scores. The Preschool Numeracy Indicators (PNI; Floyd, Hojnoski, & Key, 2006) was used as a weekly curriculum based measurement and analyzed by one-way ANCOVAS and by individual and group means for descriptive data. After the intervention, the children in the treatment group scored significantly higher in the areas of total math ability, quantity comparison, and one-to-one counting fluency than the comparison group. Implications include possibilities for further integrating mathematics within literature for preschoolers with disabilities, the benefits of intentional storybook selection for this type of intervention, and the recognition of the importance of introducing mathematical topics to preschoolers with disabilities in order of developmental cognitive readiness

EXPLORING THE INSTRUCTIONAL EMERGENT WRITING STRATEGIES OF THE EMIRATI KINDERGARTENERS: A MIXED METHOD STUDY

This mixed-method study aimed at exploring the nature and the types of instructional emergent writing strategies applied by UAE kindergarten teachers in their classrooms. The study also fathomed the teachers’ views toward the practicality of the instructional emergent writing strategies and the challenges they encountered when teaching emergent writing using these strategies. The study used an exploratory sequential mixed method design. In the first phase of the study, a qualitative mean was used by carrying out semi-structured interviews with a purposive-selected sampling of kindergarten English teachers (n=5). The second phase of the study featured a collection of quantitative data using a self-report questionnaire answered by a randomly selected sample of teachers (n=206). The results gleaned from the interviews, which showed that teachers used nurture writing as an emergent literacy skill by creating a meaningful environment. Kindergarteners can practise writing in an authentic, mundane, and communicative way. Teachers also believe in the use of gradual release instruction, whether when selecting instructional strategies or materials. The quantitative results revealed that the use of modelling strategy is the most common and frequent when teaching emergent writing along with other strategies (e.g., guided writing, shared writing, interactive writing, and freewriting), which is also confirmed by the qualitative results as the use of these strategies contribute immensely in promoting emergent writing literacy in which different skills were knitted and woven meaningfully. Furthermore, both the qualitative and the quantitative results signified that teachers confirmed that the limited time provided for children and teachers poses a real challenge. The study also found there are some difficulties in changing parents’ attitudes to fulfil their required expectations. Some recommendations and implications for future research related to EFL/ESL contexts (e.g., UAE context) are provided

Student Perceptions of the Defining Aspects of a Mathematics Methods Course that Aided in the Development of a Conceptual Understanding of Mathematics

The purpose of this study was to ascertain pre-service teachers\u27 perceptions of the defining aspects of a mathematics methods course that aided in the development of a conceptual understanding of mathematics. These perceptions emerge from the narratives of four pre-service teachers in a mid-size metropolitan university in the southeastern part of the United States. Grounded in the theory of constructivism this study focuses on the educational experiences of pre-service teachers, as reported by pre-service teachers, creating a portrait of their journey. These pre-service teachers\u27 learning experiences were based on national standards with a constructivist instructional approach and included field experience in a school environment. Analysis of the data revealed that pre-service teachers attributed their increase in conceptual understanding of mathematics to \u27touching/doing activities\u27 that required them to \u27explain why\u27. Use of models and manipulatives aided in helping the pre-service teachers verify and justify their solutions to others, providing concrete items to use in explaining abstract concepts. Ultimately, requiring pre-service to explain their own thought processes, with and without manipulatives, aided them in developing a conceptual understanding of mathematics

Student Perceptions of the Defining Aspects of a Mathematics Methods Course that Aided in the Development of a Conceptual Understanding of Mathematics

The purpose of this study was to ascertain pre-service teachers\u27 perceptions of the defining aspects of a mathematics methods course that aided in the development of a conceptual understanding of mathematics. These perceptions emerge from the narratives of four pre-service teachers in a mid-size metropolitan university in the southeastern part of the United States. Grounded in the theory of constructivism this study focuses on the educational experiences of pre-service teachers, as reported by pre-service teachers, creating a portrait of their journey. These pre-service teachers\u27 learning experiences were based on national standards with a constructivist instructional approach and included field experience in a school environment. Analysis of the data revealed that pre-service teachers attributed their increase in conceptual understanding of mathematics to \u27touching/doing activities\u27 that required them to \u27explain why\u27. Use of models and manipulatives aided in helping the pre-service teachers verify and justify their solutions to others, providing concrete items to use in explaining abstract concepts. Ultimately, requiring pre-service to explain their own thought processes, with and without manipulatives, aided them in developing a conceptual understanding of mathematics

Early Years and Key Stage 1 Mathematics Teaching: Evidence Review

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Reflections on teaching a mathematics education course

Teaching and learning involve reflexive actions and should be chosen thoughtfully and deliberately, not because someone has decided “what works.” In this study, I examine how complex conversations might offer pedagogical and theoretical (re)considerations in a teacher education course on mathematics. The term “math methods” is a doubly weighted phrase, for both mathematics and methods connote particular ideologies prevalent in current educational rhetoric. In order to unpack the impact of these words, I engage in research based on inquiry, historical analysis, and personal reflections, all of which I use in an eclectic, thoughtful, and explorative manner. The two main research questions I will explore in this dissertation involve effort by “teacher” and “student” in which both are learners, knowers and participants. The first question is how can complex conversations—those involving multiple perspectives—aid pre-service teachers in becoming reflective practitioners, effective professionals, and inquiring pedagogues? Specifically, teaching mathematics as a relational activity—in which a hermeneutical perspective is crucial—brings forth epistemological questions and issues. The historical situatedness of teacher education and mathematics education become relevant with respect to current epistemological perspectives of teachers and researchers, and these influences are examined in the context of pre-service teachers’ positionalities. The second question involves an examination of how I am transformed as I experience and reflect on participation in these complex conversations. While engaged as an instructor, I am simultaneously influenced by research in complexity theory, curriculum theory, and teacher education. In complex conversations, we can find possibilities for teaching and learning, even potential ways of being that we do not yet know. Complex conversations encourage a different form of interaction, a different way of imagining the world—different from a Ramist method of hierarchies, different from a patriarchal positioning of supervisors over teachers and teachers over students, and different from mathematics as what is. In (re)imagining what mathematics can be, it is important to recognize how mathematics is currently construed. May mathematics education be(come) a field of study that allows for differences, multiple perspectives, and authentic questions, where ideas do not converge or diverge but co-emerge

Preservice Elementary Teachers\u27 Understandings of Topics in Number Theory

Research suggests that preservice elementary teachers may lack the mathematics understanding necessary to teach mathematics for understanding. The literature has consistently linked student success in mathematics with teacher pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and recent study suggested a link between teachers’ mathematical content knowledge and student achievement. There are gaps in the literature concerning preservice elementary teachers’ understanding of number theory, and little is known about how they develop number theory PCK or the relationship between their content knowledge and their PCK. The goals of this dissertation were to investigate the nature of mathematics concentration preservice elementary teachers’ content knowledge of number theory, the nature of their potential PCK in number theory, and the relationship between the two. To address these goals, I conducted a qualitative, interpretive case study of undergraduate students enrolled in a number theory course designed for preservice elementary teachers, using an emergent constructivist-based theoretical perspective. I gathered observational, interview, and document data and conducted analysis using constant comparative methods. Many of my findings concerning preservice elementary teachers’ understandings of number theory content pertain to their understandings of greatest common factor (GCF) and least common multiple (LCM). In particular, participants were more comfortable creating LCM story problems than creating GCF story problems, but their understandings of GCF story problems were closely related to the two meanings of division. In contrast to their understanding of story problems, participants were more comfortable with procedures for finding the GCF than with procedures for finding the LCM. In response to my other research questions, evidence suggests that preservice elementary teachers do possess potential PCK in number theory, namely potential knowledge of content and students and potential knowledge of content and teaching, and that they are related and influenced by specialized content knowledge, curricular content knowledge, experiences working with students, and epistemological perspectives. My data also suggest that preservice elementary teachers possess a type of PCK that is not explicitly represented by the literature, which I call general mathematical pedagogy. My findings hold many implications for practice. For example, data suggest a process through which preservice elementary teachers might develop a robust understanding of GCF story problems, which builds on their understandings of division. With this observed development process, instructors can scaffold preservice elementary teachers’ understanding of GCF story problems. My results also imply specific ways in which mathematics teacher educators and mathematicians may help preservice elementary teachers develop PCK in number theory. For example, instructors can pose hypothetical student conjectures and ask preservice elementary teachers to reflect on the knowledge necessary to teach the content, determine the validity of the conjecture, identify the concepts the student does and does not understand, suggest how they might respond to the student, and reflect on how they used their content knowledge to do so

Scaffolding children's exploration of motion and mechanism

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2000.MIT Institute Archives copy bound: p. [1]-80, 83-86, 81-82, 87-90.Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-90).This thesis discusses the development of a software system and a collection of manipulatives that help young children, ages 7-10, learn about the core ideas behind the construction of mechanisms and the creation of mechanical motion. The software tool acts as a resource for children to access during their own building activities and provides a support structure for them to scaffold their knowledge of mechanisms and mechanical components. The software accounts for different learning styles, offering three distinct entrances into the system that overlap in content. Additionally, the software provides support for children to connect mechanisms with motions they observe in nature and their surroundings, and to post their own constructions for others to view in an online environment. In the thesis, I describe initial prototypes for the software environment and pre-built mechanisms. Primary observations of first and second grade children's investigations with these prototypes are documented and suggestions are made for further improvements to make the system more effective.by Michelle Leigh Shook.S.M

Story beads : a wearable for distributed and mobile storytelling

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-63).Stories take hundreds of different forms and serve many functions. They can be as energetic as an entire life story or as simple as a case of directions to a favorite beach. Storytelling processes are challenged and changed by technological developments in the worlds of text and image manipulation. The invention of writing changed the story from an orally recounted form which was mediated by the storyteller, to a recorded exact version, instead of a fleeting experience, a spoken weaving of a storyteller's tale. The story became an immutable object. In cinema stories are told with a sequence of juxtaposed still images moving at a speed fast enough to fool the eye into seeing a continuously changing image instead of one image after another. Television eventually coerced storytelling into 30-minute segments linked together, week by week, over a season broadcast to a large audience. The invention of the computer allowed storytelling to become flexible within a smaller granularity of content. Using the computer capabilities for storage and manipulation of information, authors can design stories and present them to different viewing audiences in different ways. Mobile computing, like the technological developments that came before it, will demand its own storytelling processes and story forms. This thesis defines a specific storytelling process, which I call Transactional Storytelling. Transactional Storytelling is the construction of story through trade and repurposing of images and image sequences. StoyBeads are wearable computers developed as a tool for constructing image-based stories by allowing users to sequence and trade story pieces of image and text. StoyBeads are modular, wearable computer necklaces made of tiny computer "beads" capable of storing or displaying images. Beads communicate by infrared light, allowing the trade of digital images by beaming from bead to bead or by trade of a physical bead containing images. My thesis proposes a tool for mobile story creation that will produce a unique storytelling process for constructing image-based stories.Barbara A. Barry.S.M