Eva Thanheiser - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Eva Thanheiser
Journal for Research in Mathematics Education
This article contributes to the larger narrative around what makes a mathematics professional dev... more This article contributes to the larger narrative around what makes a mathematics professional development (PD) successful and in what ways. We share a research-based PD model that was implemented in elementary schools in an urban school district for 3 years. The model uses a pseudo lesson study approach and emphasizes standards-based instruction. We found that teachers made gains in knowledge and instruction quality. However, whereas some students saw gains on standardized assessments, this was the case only for students who were not members of historically minoritized groups (Black/Latino), countering our assumptions that the PD would lead to equitable achievement results. We conclude with a discussion of how a colorblind approach to PD may account for the inequitable results.
Educational Studies in Mathematics
In this paper, we network five frameworks (cognitive demand, lesson cohesion, cognitive engagemen... more In this paper, we network five frameworks (cognitive demand, lesson cohesion, cognitive engagement, collective argumentation, and student contribution) for an analytic approach that allows us to present a more holistic picture of classrooms which engage students in justifying. We network these frameworks around the edges of the instructional triangle as a means to coordinate them to illustrate the observable relationships among teacher, students(s), and content. We illustrate the potential of integrating these frameworks via analysis of two lessons that, while sharing surface level similarities, are profoundly different when considering the complexities of a classroom focused on justifying. We found that this integrated comparison across all dimensions (rather than focusing on just one or two) was a useful way to compare lessons with respect to a classroom culture that is characterized by students engaging in justifying.
International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2019
Research in Mathematics Education, 2022
The Mathematics Enthusiast, 2014
This Special Issue on the mathematical content knowledge of prospective elementary teachers (PTs)... more This Special Issue on the mathematical content knowledge of prospective elementary teachers (PTs) provides summaries of the extant peer-reviewed research literature from 1978 to 2012 on PTs' content knowledge across several mathematical topics, specifically whole number and operations, fractions, decimals, geometry and measurement, and algebra. Each topic-specific summary of the literature is presented in a self-contained paper, written by a subgroup of a larger Working Group that has
The Mathematics Enthusiast, 2014
This Special Issue on the mathematical content knowledge of prospective elementary teachers (PTs)... more This Special Issue on the mathematical content knowledge of prospective elementary teachers (PTs) provides summaries of the extant peer-reviewed research literature from 1978 to 2012 on PTs' content knowledge across several mathematical topics, specifically whole number and operations, fractions, decimals, geometry and measurement, and algebra. Each topic-specific summary of the literature is presented in a self-contained paper, written by a subgroup of a larger Working Group that has
Mathematics Teacher Educator, 2021
[The If the World Were a Village book (Smith, 2011) and activity (described in this article)] was... more [The If the World Were a Village book (Smith, 2011) and activity (described in this article)] was a really good way to open one’s perspective. As an American, I tend to be a bit focused on the United States, so to see how much [or how little] of the world is actually represented in my perspective was enlightening. Living in the United States . . . I was surprised that only 5% [of the world population] were from North America. Long-standing and ongoing calls exist for making mathematics meaningful, relevant, and applicable outside the classroom. Major mathematics education organizations (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics [NCSM], Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators [AMTE], TODOS: Mathematics for ALL) have called for mathematics to be seen as a tool for understanding and critiquing the world. To prepare students and teachers to do this, we must go beyond “everyday" contexts and include analysis of social justice issues into our courses. We share an activity designed to address these calls while also addressing the mathematics goals of the course. We share data showing that prospective teachers learned mathematics while also learning about their world and reframing their view of mathematics as a tool to make sense of the world.
New ICMI Study Series, 2018
The Mathematics Enthusiast, 2020
In order to be effectively prepared by a teacher education program, prospective elementary teache... more In order to be effectively prepared by a teacher education program, prospective elementary teachers (PTs) need to experience high quality mathematics instruction in their mathematics content courses. The instructors of these courses typically consist of individuals (mathematicians and mathematics educators) with ranging experiences, from tenured faculty members to first-year assistant professors or graduate students. This paper explores how to support novice mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) who are teaching elementary content coursework for PTs for the first time. We detail and describe how to implement three systems for supporting novice MTEs: working with a mentor, being provided with educative curriculum materials, and working in a collaborative teaching environment. We close by discussing specific challenges associated with these supports, and call for more institutions to share how they have successfully implemented systems to support novice MTEs.
Mathematics Education Across Cultures: Proceedings of the 42nd Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2020
The main focus of the day was the "If the World Were a Village" activity/book. I thought it was a... more The main focus of the day was the "If the World Were a Village" activity/book. I thought it was a really good way to open one's perspective. As an American, I tend to be a bit focused on the US, so to see how much [or how little] of the world is actually represented in my perspective was enlightening." "Living in the United States … I was surprised that only 5% [of the world population] were from North America" Increasingly, mathematics is being positioned as a tool to support students' understandings of social (in)justice and their own unique social positioning in the world. To this end, this study analyzes the impact of curricular reform efforts in an elementary mathematics content course. The course focused on fractions and statistics, and the course content was taught through tasks designed to support prospective teachers in understanding and critiquing the world. The authors found that through the course, prospective teachers' content knowledge increased and their knowledge of the world's demographics and social inequities increased.
Mathematics Education Across Cultures: Proceedings of the 42nd Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2020
Untangling the relationships between teaching, learning, and content is complex. This study focus... more Untangling the relationships between teaching, learning, and content is complex. This study focuses on one aspect of these relationships, i.e., the at times challenging role that language can play in mathematical tasks, discussions, and student access. The authors analyze two video banks to identify and operationalize combinations of teacher and student actions that support student access to mathematical tasks and language.
Research in Mathematics Education, 2019
In this chapter I reflect on how I have designed and enacted a research program in the context of... more In this chapter I reflect on how I have designed and enacted a research program in the context of teaching mathematics content and methods courses for university prospective elementary teachers. In my work, my research and teaching inform each other. I discuss the cyclical nature of such a research program where each research project lays the foundation for the following ones. I also discuss how to build collaborative research programs with other researchers interested in similar research.
International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2016
Citation Details Olanoff, D., Feldman, Z., Welder, R., Tobias, J., Thanheiser, E., & Hillen, A. (... more Citation Details Olanoff, D., Feldman, Z., Welder, R., Tobias, J., Thanheiser, E., & Hillen, A. (2016). Greater number of larger pieces: A strategy to promote prospective teachers’ fraction number sense development. In M. B. Wood, E. E. Turner, M. Civil, & J. A. Eli (Eds.), Proceedings of the 38th annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (pp. 799-807).
Mathematics Education Across Cultures: Proceedings of the 42nd Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2020
Centering class discussions around student mathematical thinking has been identified as one of th... more Centering class discussions around student mathematical thinking has been identified as one of the critical components of teaching that engages students in justifying and generalizing. This report shares analysis from a larger project aimed at describing and quantifying student and teacher components of productive classrooms at a fine-grain level. We share results from this analysis of 39 mathematics lessons with a focus working with public records of students' mathematical thinking.
We share the case of one teacher engaged in professional development (PD) designed to improve col... more We share the case of one teacher engaged in professional development (PD) designed to improve collective argumentation. We present an analysis of two lessons in her classroom, one before and one after her engagement with the professional development. Findings show that the classrooms differ across both teacher support for collective argumentation (requesting ideas and elaboration vs. requesting/acts and methods), and student contributions Oustifications vs. procedures and facts) .
Leaders in professional development (PD) initiatives (such as facilitators, principals, coaches) ... more Leaders in professional development (PD) initiatives (such as facilitators, principals, coaches) hold a great deal of power in their language, carrying the ability to manage meaning and frame experiences. Rather than working from interview data, this report addresses a gap in leadership research by examining the words used by leaders in their on-the-job interactions. We present an initial framework for capturing leadership language qualities at the macro level (framing the PD's purpose) and micro level (rhetorical crafting in terms of metaphor usage, pronoun choice, and other language selections). Our data come from a larger project evaluating the efficacy of a large-scale sustained PD. Through developing a lens for analyzing leadership, we hope to build a tool to eventually connect leadership with other related PD measures including teacher buy-in, fidelity of implementation, and ultimately outcomes in schools.
While professional development (PD) provides an opportunity for teachers to cultivate skills that... more While professional development (PD) provides an opportunity for teachers to cultivate skills that are consistent with best practices in the field, it is their buy-into the PD that ultimately determines the effectiveness of the PD. We examined how teacher buy-in affected the classroom habits and practice of four elementary teachers who took part in a district wide PD. Using baseline and first-year implementation video recordings, in conjunction with frameworks for discourse analysis, cognitive demand, and tools built specifically to measure PD implementation, we found that varying combinations of teachers' beliefs served as a mitigating factor for PD implementation.
Journal for Research in Mathematics Education
This article contributes to the larger narrative around what makes a mathematics professional dev... more This article contributes to the larger narrative around what makes a mathematics professional development (PD) successful and in what ways. We share a research-based PD model that was implemented in elementary schools in an urban school district for 3 years. The model uses a pseudo lesson study approach and emphasizes standards-based instruction. We found that teachers made gains in knowledge and instruction quality. However, whereas some students saw gains on standardized assessments, this was the case only for students who were not members of historically minoritized groups (Black/Latino), countering our assumptions that the PD would lead to equitable achievement results. We conclude with a discussion of how a colorblind approach to PD may account for the inequitable results.
Educational Studies in Mathematics
In this paper, we network five frameworks (cognitive demand, lesson cohesion, cognitive engagemen... more In this paper, we network five frameworks (cognitive demand, lesson cohesion, cognitive engagement, collective argumentation, and student contribution) for an analytic approach that allows us to present a more holistic picture of classrooms which engage students in justifying. We network these frameworks around the edges of the instructional triangle as a means to coordinate them to illustrate the observable relationships among teacher, students(s), and content. We illustrate the potential of integrating these frameworks via analysis of two lessons that, while sharing surface level similarities, are profoundly different when considering the complexities of a classroom focused on justifying. We found that this integrated comparison across all dimensions (rather than focusing on just one or two) was a useful way to compare lessons with respect to a classroom culture that is characterized by students engaging in justifying.
International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2019
Research in Mathematics Education, 2022
The Mathematics Enthusiast, 2014
This Special Issue on the mathematical content knowledge of prospective elementary teachers (PTs)... more This Special Issue on the mathematical content knowledge of prospective elementary teachers (PTs) provides summaries of the extant peer-reviewed research literature from 1978 to 2012 on PTs' content knowledge across several mathematical topics, specifically whole number and operations, fractions, decimals, geometry and measurement, and algebra. Each topic-specific summary of the literature is presented in a self-contained paper, written by a subgroup of a larger Working Group that has
The Mathematics Enthusiast, 2014
This Special Issue on the mathematical content knowledge of prospective elementary teachers (PTs)... more This Special Issue on the mathematical content knowledge of prospective elementary teachers (PTs) provides summaries of the extant peer-reviewed research literature from 1978 to 2012 on PTs' content knowledge across several mathematical topics, specifically whole number and operations, fractions, decimals, geometry and measurement, and algebra. Each topic-specific summary of the literature is presented in a self-contained paper, written by a subgroup of a larger Working Group that has
Mathematics Teacher Educator, 2021
[The If the World Were a Village book (Smith, 2011) and activity (described in this article)] was... more [The If the World Were a Village book (Smith, 2011) and activity (described in this article)] was a really good way to open one’s perspective. As an American, I tend to be a bit focused on the United States, so to see how much [or how little] of the world is actually represented in my perspective was enlightening. Living in the United States . . . I was surprised that only 5% [of the world population] were from North America. Long-standing and ongoing calls exist for making mathematics meaningful, relevant, and applicable outside the classroom. Major mathematics education organizations (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics [NCSM], Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators [AMTE], TODOS: Mathematics for ALL) have called for mathematics to be seen as a tool for understanding and critiquing the world. To prepare students and teachers to do this, we must go beyond “everyday" contexts and include analysis of social justice issues into our courses. We share an activity designed to address these calls while also addressing the mathematics goals of the course. We share data showing that prospective teachers learned mathematics while also learning about their world and reframing their view of mathematics as a tool to make sense of the world.
New ICMI Study Series, 2018
The Mathematics Enthusiast, 2020
In order to be effectively prepared by a teacher education program, prospective elementary teache... more In order to be effectively prepared by a teacher education program, prospective elementary teachers (PTs) need to experience high quality mathematics instruction in their mathematics content courses. The instructors of these courses typically consist of individuals (mathematicians and mathematics educators) with ranging experiences, from tenured faculty members to first-year assistant professors or graduate students. This paper explores how to support novice mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) who are teaching elementary content coursework for PTs for the first time. We detail and describe how to implement three systems for supporting novice MTEs: working with a mentor, being provided with educative curriculum materials, and working in a collaborative teaching environment. We close by discussing specific challenges associated with these supports, and call for more institutions to share how they have successfully implemented systems to support novice MTEs.
Mathematics Education Across Cultures: Proceedings of the 42nd Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2020
The main focus of the day was the "If the World Were a Village" activity/book. I thought it was a... more The main focus of the day was the "If the World Were a Village" activity/book. I thought it was a really good way to open one's perspective. As an American, I tend to be a bit focused on the US, so to see how much [or how little] of the world is actually represented in my perspective was enlightening." "Living in the United States … I was surprised that only 5% [of the world population] were from North America" Increasingly, mathematics is being positioned as a tool to support students' understandings of social (in)justice and their own unique social positioning in the world. To this end, this study analyzes the impact of curricular reform efforts in an elementary mathematics content course. The course focused on fractions and statistics, and the course content was taught through tasks designed to support prospective teachers in understanding and critiquing the world. The authors found that through the course, prospective teachers' content knowledge increased and their knowledge of the world's demographics and social inequities increased.
Mathematics Education Across Cultures: Proceedings of the 42nd Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2020
Untangling the relationships between teaching, learning, and content is complex. This study focus... more Untangling the relationships between teaching, learning, and content is complex. This study focuses on one aspect of these relationships, i.e., the at times challenging role that language can play in mathematical tasks, discussions, and student access. The authors analyze two video banks to identify and operationalize combinations of teacher and student actions that support student access to mathematical tasks and language.
Research in Mathematics Education, 2019
In this chapter I reflect on how I have designed and enacted a research program in the context of... more In this chapter I reflect on how I have designed and enacted a research program in the context of teaching mathematics content and methods courses for university prospective elementary teachers. In my work, my research and teaching inform each other. I discuss the cyclical nature of such a research program where each research project lays the foundation for the following ones. I also discuss how to build collaborative research programs with other researchers interested in similar research.
International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2016
Citation Details Olanoff, D., Feldman, Z., Welder, R., Tobias, J., Thanheiser, E., & Hillen, A. (... more Citation Details Olanoff, D., Feldman, Z., Welder, R., Tobias, J., Thanheiser, E., & Hillen, A. (2016). Greater number of larger pieces: A strategy to promote prospective teachers’ fraction number sense development. In M. B. Wood, E. E. Turner, M. Civil, & J. A. Eli (Eds.), Proceedings of the 38th annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (pp. 799-807).
Mathematics Education Across Cultures: Proceedings of the 42nd Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, 2020
Centering class discussions around student mathematical thinking has been identified as one of th... more Centering class discussions around student mathematical thinking has been identified as one of the critical components of teaching that engages students in justifying and generalizing. This report shares analysis from a larger project aimed at describing and quantifying student and teacher components of productive classrooms at a fine-grain level. We share results from this analysis of 39 mathematics lessons with a focus working with public records of students' mathematical thinking.
We share the case of one teacher engaged in professional development (PD) designed to improve col... more We share the case of one teacher engaged in professional development (PD) designed to improve collective argumentation. We present an analysis of two lessons in her classroom, one before and one after her engagement with the professional development. Findings show that the classrooms differ across both teacher support for collective argumentation (requesting ideas and elaboration vs. requesting/acts and methods), and student contributions Oustifications vs. procedures and facts) .
Leaders in professional development (PD) initiatives (such as facilitators, principals, coaches) ... more Leaders in professional development (PD) initiatives (such as facilitators, principals, coaches) hold a great deal of power in their language, carrying the ability to manage meaning and frame experiences. Rather than working from interview data, this report addresses a gap in leadership research by examining the words used by leaders in their on-the-job interactions. We present an initial framework for capturing leadership language qualities at the macro level (framing the PD's purpose) and micro level (rhetorical crafting in terms of metaphor usage, pronoun choice, and other language selections). Our data come from a larger project evaluating the efficacy of a large-scale sustained PD. Through developing a lens for analyzing leadership, we hope to build a tool to eventually connect leadership with other related PD measures including teacher buy-in, fidelity of implementation, and ultimately outcomes in schools.
While professional development (PD) provides an opportunity for teachers to cultivate skills that... more While professional development (PD) provides an opportunity for teachers to cultivate skills that are consistent with best practices in the field, it is their buy-into the PD that ultimately determines the effectiveness of the PD. We examined how teacher buy-in affected the classroom habits and practice of four elementary teachers who took part in a district wide PD. Using baseline and first-year implementation video recordings, in conjunction with frameworks for discourse analysis, cognitive demand, and tools built specifically to measure PD implementation, we found that varying combinations of teachers' beliefs served as a mitigating factor for PD implementation.