Arab and Jewish mathematics teachers' endorsed pedagogical narratives and reported practices

Our aim in this study was to adjust a qualitative discursive framework on teachers’ pedagogical discourse to develop a survey tool that would enable a quantitative examination of teachers' endorsed pedagogical narratives, or beliefs, and their reported practices. Furthermore, we aimed to use the survey tool to assess differences in beliefs and reported practices between Arab (N=28) and Jewish (N=45) teachers in TEAMS (Teaching Exploratively for All Mathematics Students) professional learning communities. The survey was developed around three sub-scales: Exploratory pedagogical discourse (EPD), Delivery pedagogical discourse (DPD), and mathematical literacy. Findings reveal satisfactory reliability measures of the three subscales, as well as interesting differences between the Arab and Jewish teachers

How Learners Perceive Inter-Disciplinary Dialogic Science Related Learning Experiences: A Mixed-Method Study

Well-designed, dialogic, and interdisciplinary learning opportunities in science related disciplines can promote many educational goals. The difficulty lies in providing these opportunities in schools. Can out-of-school focus days fill the void? Here, we performed a mixed methods study to discover how middle school learners perceive focus days that included dialogic, interdisciplinary activities in mathematics, science, and philosophy, all around socio-scientific dilemmas. We also sought to understand the experiences’ impact on learners’ self-perceived dialogic engagement in the school classroom. We focused on (1) learners’ perceptions and recollections of the dialogic climate during the focus days; (2) the perceived contribution of the three disciplines (mathematics, science and philosophy) to the interdisciplinary focus days; and (3) the focus days’ effects on the dialogic climate in the everyday school environment. Our findings suggest that (1) learners generally considered the focus days as enjoyable and different than their everyday school experience; (2) students did not consider each discipline equally relevant to the focus days’ main topics; and (3) the effects of the focus days were localized, that is, no impact was found on the dialogic climate at school. We discuss implications for promoting interdisciplinary, dialogic science related learning in secondary schools

Attitudes, Beliefs, Motivation and Identity in Mathematics Education: An Overview of the Field and Future Directions

Mathematics Education; Educational Psycholog

Shifting frames-A teacher's change towards explorative instruction

International audienceThe case of one middle school teacher's change in practice is examined through the lens of "shifting frames" from ritual to explorative instruction. These frames are collection of coherent mathematical as well as subjectifying (people-related) metarules. The teacher, who participated in a year-long PD program, started out in a ritual frame and gradually shifted to a more explorative frame. The shift was not uniform, and could be seen first in the subjectifying metarules , and only later (and very partially) in mathematical metarules of exploring objects. In addition, newly learned practices were partially distorted through the old ritual frame

Agency and identity of female Arab students entering a technological university

International audienceThis report studies the progression of cultural and mathematical identities of female Arab students during their first semester of engineering studies in a technological university in Israel. The report focuses on the cases of two students, Mira and Lena, who demonstrated remarkably different trajectories of identity development. Data was analyzed by closely examining narratives in students’ Space of Authorship related to gender and ethnicity. Findings show that Mira’s Space of Authorship included multiple narratives relating to ethnic and religious conflicts, upon which Mira enacted agency by debating and choosing specific courses of action both in social life and in mathematics learning. In contrast, Lena’s Space of Authorship drew upon psychological discourse to explain her difficulties in ways that did not afford her agency to act back on the challenges she was facing

Opportunities for Adopting a Discourse of Explorations in a Professional Development Setting

International audienceWe examine the productiveness of discussions in a professional development (PD) towards explorative mathematics instruction (EMI). The artifacts used in the PD session under examination were a video-clip of a classroom discussion, together with the Quadrants coding scheme, a scheme originally developed for research purposes. We define productive discussions by relying on the linguistic tool of lexical chains that point to lexical cohesion. The analysis shows that the use of the coding scheme as an artifact, together with a video clip, offered increased opportunities for surfacing misalignments between the teachers' framing of learning and instruction and the PD leader's framing of it. These misaligned frames, which draw on the Acquisition Pedagogical Discourse, vs. Explorations Pedagogical Discourse, are usually difficult to surface

Zkoumání omezení a možností výzkumu matematických schopností u žáků s nízkou úrovní gramotnosti

V článku jsou představeny výzvy, kterým musíme čelit, když sbíráme data o matematických schopnostech mladších žáků s nízkou úrovní gramotnosti a zběhlosti v jazyce, v němž probíhá vyučování, formou písemných odpovědí na ústně zadávané dotazníky. Data byla získána od 1 208 žáků třetích a čtvrtých ročníků z dvanácti škol na východě Jihoafrické republiky. Na jejich základě je zkoumáno, co je možné z žákovských odpovědí  odhalit, a jsou otevírány otázky, které jsou zajímavé ve vztahu k těm schopnostem žáků, které z dotazníků nejsou přímo patrné. Rozdíly v úrovni gramotnosti žáků a jejich zběhlosti ve vyučovacím jazyku ovlivňují jejich odpovědi a znesnadňují rozhodování, zda rozdíly mezi školami jsou výsledkem různých matematických schopností nebo spíše důsledkem rozdílů v gramotnosti a úrovni vyjadřování. Diskuse se zaměřuje na to, co lze odvodit ze získaných dat, a současně jsou zkoumány výzvy, které přináší nutnost získat množství dat od velkého počtu žáků s nízkou úrovní vyjadřování a gramotnosti

Adolescents' Endorsement of Narratives Regarding the Importance of Mathematics: A Dialogic Perspective

International audienceSociocultural accounts of students' identity emphasize the endorsement of narratives about learning from "significant narrators". In contrast, psychological accounts highlight adolescences as a time of separation from parents and other authority figures. In this study, we attempt to reconcile these two views based on the Bakhtinian concepts of Authoritarian discourse and Internally Persuasive discourse. The study examined the mathematical identity narratives of five adolescents, 2nd generation to former Soviet Union immigrants in Israel, participating in a STEM afterschool activity. The findings focus on three students' endorsement of one narrative, "math is important", in both individual interviews and a focus group. The analysis showed that all participants endorsed the narrative and related it to their designated identities. However, participants differed in the level of endorsement of this narrative, ranging from 'full' endorsement to 'oppositional' endorsement

Adolescents' Endorsement of Narratives Regarding the Importance of Mathematics: A Dialogic Perspective

International audienceSociocultural accounts of students' identity emphasize the endorsement of narratives about learning from "significant narrators". In contrast, psychological accounts highlight adolescences as a time of separation from parents and other authority figures. In this study, we attempt to reconcile these two views based on the Bakhtinian concepts of Authoritarian discourse and Internally Persuasive discourse. The study examined the mathematical identity narratives of five adolescents, 2nd generation to former Soviet Union immigrants in Israel, participating in a STEM afterschool activity. The findings focus on three students' endorsement of one narrative, "math is important", in both individual interviews and a focus group. The analysis showed that all participants endorsed the narrative and related it to their designated identities. However, participants differed in the level of endorsement of this narrative, ranging from 'full' endorsement to 'oppositional' endorsement

Opportunities for Adopting a Discourse of Explorations in a Professional Development Setting

International audienceWe examine the productiveness of discussions in a professional development (PD) towards explorative mathematics instruction (EMI). The artifacts used in the PD session under examination were a video-clip of a classroom discussion, together with the Quadrants coding scheme, a scheme originally developed for research purposes. We define productive discussions by relying on the linguistic tool of lexical chains that point to lexical cohesion. The analysis shows that the use of the coding scheme as an artifact, together with a video clip, offered increased opportunities for surfacing misalignments between the teachers' framing of learning and instruction and the PD leader's framing of it. These misaligned frames, which draw on the Acquisition Pedagogical Discourse, vs. Explorations Pedagogical Discourse, are usually difficult to surface