Using scenes of dialogue about mathematics with adult numeracy learners - what it might tell us (original) (raw)

Learning mathematics through conversation: Is it as good as they say?

For the Learning of …, 1998

A. Why do we believe in learning mathemat-ics through conversation? An introduction Anna Sfard There seems to be a strong consensus among educators about the need to foster students' ability to 'talk mathemat-ics'. The Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for ...

Using dialogue in Mathematics classes: Could it aid Mathematicsal reasoning?

2012

Students studying for a language module for an Advanced Certificate in Education in Mathematics and Science Education (ACE:MST) at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) were asked to answer a questionnaire about their perceptions concerning language, language policy and their experiences in multilingual classes. Very often students give answers that would satisfy the lecturer. In order to open windows to their souls they were first asked to write poetry about their language experiences before they answered the questionnaire. The results opened a common ground of trust and sharing in the class that could not have been evident in a normal lecture environment

Training teachers in maintaining equity in the micro-moments of a mathematical dialogue

Teaching and Teacher Education, 2020

Abstract This article presents the analysis of a large body of video data of trainee teachers who were learning mathematical dialogue techniques. We explore some of the ways in which trainee teachers can make better use of children's own contributions to foster learning and increase pupil motivation – taking a number of analytic principles from conversation analysis. While the importance of dialogue in mathematics education has drawn increased attention in recent years, there is still relatively little work on how teachers may learn to make better use of dialogue in the classroom. This paper aims to address that lacunae.

Cognition as communication: Rethinking learning-by-talking through multi-faceted analysis of students' mathematical interactions

Mind, Culture, and Activity, 2001

... no one wants to abandon the train of his own discourse to answer questions that, coming from an-other discourse, would necessitate rethinking the same thing with other words, perhaps ending up on strange ground, far from the safe path. (Italo Calvino, 1983, p. 105) ... In this article we take a close look at the now popular claim that many school subjects, and mathematics among them, are best learned in an interactive way, through conversation with others. Two types of specially devised analytical tools are used to analyze the data coming from a two-month-long series of interactions between two 13-year-old boys learning algebra. Focal analysis gives us a detailed picture of the students’ conversation on the level of its immediate mathematical contents and makes it possible to assess the effectiveness of communication. This is complemented by preoccupational analysis, which is directed at meta-messages and examines participants’ engagement in the conversation, thus possibly highlighting at least some of the reasons for communication failure.

Dialogic Practices in the Mathematics Classroom

Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia, 2018

Teaching mathematics involves a lot of talking, and dialogic practices are central to most pedagogical practices in mathematics classrooms. Furthermore, for mathematical processes such as ‘reasoning’, ‘explaining’ and ‘mathematical thinking’ to be developed, there is a need for rich and robust dialogic interactions in the classroom. In this paper we investigate the dialogue in a typical Year 5 mathematics lesson by analysing the transcript using two different analytical frameworks. While the analysis showed that there were many interactions with nearly half being student turns, it was also evident that almost all the exchanges followed an Initiation-Response-Feedback pattern, with a high degree of teacher control. Furthermore, there was little evidence that the dialogic pedagogies of the lesson promoted student development in the mathematical processes. Thus, we content that there is a need to understand the dialogue of mathematics pedagogy, and its impact on students’ broader mathe...

Challenging Mathematical Conversations

One finding from a larger investigation of teacher-child interactions that challenged young children to probe their mathematical understandings is reported in this paper. It is the interlinked nature of the conversational exchanges between teacher and child in mathematics lessons in the early years of primary school. These conversations serve to support, extend and challenge children's thinking. One detailed example of such mathematical conversations, the story of Jordan, is presented to illustrate the phenomenon. Children construct mathematical ideas in the course of their interactions with their teacher and classmates (McNeal, 2001; Mercer, 1996). Interactions in whole class settings have been studied (Kyriacou & Issitt, 2008; Mercer, 1996; Mercer & Littleton, 2007); however, little is known about the interactions between teacher and child in one-to-one conversations during the mathematics lessons of young children. The behaviours of highly effective teachers as they conversed...