Teacher investigations of students' work: The evolution of teachers' social processes and interpretations of students' thinking
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the evolution of teachers' collective interpretations of their students' thinking and of the teachers' social processes as a result of investigating their students' work. The latest reform efforts in mathematics education stress the importance of teachers attending to and understanding their students' mathematical thinking, yet focusing on students' thinking can prove difficult for teachers. Ball (1997a) recommends that teacher investigations of classroom artifacts, such as students' work, hold promise for assisting teachers with interpreting their students' thinking, but that it would be helpful to know more about how such approaches influence teachers' interpretations of students' thinking. Therefore, this study investigated two research questions: “When teachers as a group engage in an investigation of their students' work on a thought-revealing, non-routine mathematical task, how do the teachers' collective interpretations of their students' mathematical thinking evolve within the investigation?” and “When teachers as a group engage in a series of investigations of their students' work on thought-revealing, non-routine mathematical tasks, how do the teachers' social processes for making collective interpretations of their students' mathematical thinking evolve across the investigations?” The teachers engaged in five investigations of their students' work. For each investigation, the teachers participated in an Introductory Workshop, where they completed the non-routine mathematics task, then implemented the task in their classrooms, and finally participated in a Follow-Up Workshop, where they discussed and recorded on a Consensus Students' Thinking Sheet their students' thinking strategies for solving the associated task, the mathematical skills and concepts associated with each thinking strategy, and the effectiveness of each thinking strategy in solving the task. Data analysis revealed that the teachers' collective interpretations evolved within three dimensions corresponding with the content of the Consensus Students' Thinking Sheets and that the teachers frequently adopted a students' perspective of the task, leading them to more insights into their students' thinking and to more appreciation for their students' thinking. Data analysis also revealed that the teachers' social processes did not evolve across the five investigations. Implications for facilitators of teacher investigations of students' work and directions for further research are provided.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Zawojewski, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Teacher education|Mathematics education|Curricula|Teaching
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