The Culture Of The Mathematics Classroom

The culture of the mathematics classroom is becoming an increasingly salient topic of discussion in mathematics education. Studying and changing what happens in the classroom allows researchers and educators to recognize the social character of mathematical pedagogy and the relationship between the classroom and culture at large. This volume is divided into three sections, reporting findings gained in both research and practice. The first part presents several attempts to change classroom culture by focusing on the education of mathematics teachers and on teacher-researcher collaboration. The second section shifts to the interactive processes of the mathematics classroom and to the communal nature of learning. The third section discusses the means of constructing, filtering, and establishing mathematical knowledge that are characteristic of classroom culture. This internationally relevant volume will be of particular interest to educators and educational researchers.

Students pursue problems they’re curious about, not problems they’re told to solve. Creating a math classroom filled with confident problem solvers starts by introducing challenges discovered in the real world, not by presenting a sequence of prescribed problems, says Gerald Aungst. In this groundbreaking book, he offers a thoughtful approach for instilling a culture of learning in your classroom through five powerful, yet straightforward principles: Conjecture, Collaboration, Communication, Chaos, and Celebration. Aungst shows you how to Embrace collaboration and purposeful chaos to help students engage in productive struggle, using non-routine and unsolved problems Put each chapter’s principles into practice through a variety of strategies, activities, and by incorporating technology tools Introduce substantive, lasting cultural changes in your classroom through a manageable, gradual shift in processes and behaviors Five Principles of the Modern Mathematics Classroom offers new ideas for inspiring math students by building a more engaging and collaborative learning environment. "Bravo! This book brings a conceptual framework for K-12 mathematics to life. As a parent and as the executive director of Edutopia, I commend Aungst for sharing his 5 principles. This is a perfect blend of inspiring and practical. Highly recommended!" Cindy Johanson, Executive Director, Edutopia George Lucas Educational Foundation "Aungst ignites the magic of mathematics by reminding us what makes mathematicians so passionate about their subject matter. Grounded in research, his work takes us on a journey into classrooms so that we may take away tips to put into practice today." Erin Klein, Teacher, Speaker, and Author of Redesigning Learning Spaces

Advocating for the use of culturally specific pedagogy to enhance the mathematics instruction of diverse students, this revised second edition offers a wide variety of conceptual and curricular resources for teaching mathematics in a way that combats and confronts the forms of oppression that students face today. Addressing stratification based on race, class, and gender, Leonard offers lesson templates that teachers can use with ethnically and culturally diverse students and makes the link between research and practice. Connecting cutting-edge and emerging technologies to culturally specific pedagogy, the second edition features new chapters on mathematics and social justice, robotics, and spatial visualization. Applying a more expansive focus, the new edition discusses current movements such as Black Lives Matter and incorporates examples of rural and tribal students to paint a broader picture of what culturally rich mathematics classrooms actually look like. The text builds on sociocultural theory and research on culture and mathematics cognition to extend the literature and better understand minority students’ goals and learning needs. Including new discussion questions and new examples, lessons, and vignettes of integrating culture in the mathematics classroom, this book employs pedagogical research to field-test new instructional methods for culturally diverse and female students.

Mathematics teaching and learning have been dominated by a concern for the intellectual readiness of the child, debates over rote learning versus understanding and, recently, mathematical processes and thinking. The gaze into today's mathematics classroom is firmly focused on the individual learner. Recently, however, studies of mathematics in social practices, including the market place and the home, have initiated a shift of focus. Culture has become identified as a key to understanding the basis on which the learner appropriates meaning. The chapters in this timely book attempt to engage with this shift of focus and offer original contributions to the debate about mathematics teaching and learning. They adopt theoretical perspectives while drawing on the classroom as both the source of investigation and the site of potential change and development. The book will be of fundamental interest to lecturers and researchers and to teachers concerned with the classroom as a cultural phenomenon.

The achievement of students of color continues to be disproportionately low at all levels of education. More than ever, Geneva Gay's foundational book on culturally responsive teaching is essential reading in addressing the needs of today's diverse student population. Combining insights from multicultural education theory and research with real-life classroom stories, Gay demonstrates that all students will perform better on multiple measures of achievement when teaching is filtered through their own cultural experiences. This bestselling text has been extensively revised to include expanded coverage of student ethnic groups: African and Latino Americans as well as Asian and Native Americans as well as new material on culturally diverse communication, addressing common myths about language diversity and the effects of "English Plus" instruction.

A thinking student is an engaged student Teachers often find it difficult to implement lessons that help students go beyond rote memorization and repetitive calculations. In fact, institutional norms and habits that permeate all classrooms can actually be enabling "non-thinking" student behavior. Sparked by observing teachers struggle to implement rich mathematics tasks to engage students in deep thinking, Peter Liljedahl has translated his 15 years of research into this practical guide on how to move toward a thinking classroom. Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K–12 helps teachers implement 14 optimal practices for thinking that create an ideal setting for deep mathematics learning to occur. This guide Provides the what, why, and how of each practice and answers teachers’ most frequently asked questions Includes firsthand accounts of how these practices foster thinking through teacher and student interviews and student work samples Offers a plethora of macro moves, micro moves, and rich tasks to get started Organizes the 14 practices into four toolkits that can be implemented in order and built on throughout the year When combined, these unique research-based practices create the optimal conditions for learner-centered, student-owned deep mathematical thinking and learning, and have the power to transform mathematics classrooms like never before.

This book that explores the mathematics education of Latinos/as in 13 original research studies. Each chapter represents research that grounds mathematics instruction for Latinos/as in the resources to be found in culture and language. By inverting the deficit perspective, this volume redresses the shortcomings found in the previous literature on Latino/a learners. Each study frames language (e.g. bilingualism) not as an obstacle to learning, but as a resource for mathematical reasoning. Other chapters explore the notion of cultural variation not as a liability but as a tool for educators to build upon in the teaching of mathematics. Specifically, the book reframes culture as a focus on the practices, objects, inscriptions, or people that connect mathematical concepts to student thinking and experiences, both in and out of school. The book's four sections divide the research: The first section of the book focuses on mathematic learning in classrooms, specifically exploring bilingual, Latino/a students; the second section explores Latino/a learners in communities, including the role parents can play in advancing learning; the third section includes chapters focused on teacher professional growth; the final section concerns the assessment (and mis-assessment) of Latino/a learners. The research shared in this volume provides ample evidence that mathematics educators who choose to ignore language or culture in their pedagogy risk shortchanging their Latino/a students.

Using strengths-based approaches to support development in mathematics It’s time to re-imagine what’s possible and celebrate the brilliance multilingual learners bring to today’s classrooms. Innovative teaching strategies can position these learners as leaders in mathematics. Yet, as the number of multilingual learners in North American schools grows, many teachers have not had opportunities to gain the competencies required to teach these learners effectively, especially in disciplines such as mathematics. Multilingual learners—historically called English Language Learners—are expected to interpret the meaning of problems, analyze, make conjectures, evaluate their progress, and discuss and understand their own approaches and the approaches of their peers in mathematics classrooms. Thus, language plays a vital role in mathematics learning, and demonstrating these competencies in a second (or third) language is a challenging endeavor. Based on best practices and the authors’ years of research, this guide offers practical approaches that equip grades K-8 teachers to draw on the strengths of multilingual learners, partner with their families, and position these learners for success. Readers will find: • A focus on multilingual students as leaders • A strength-based approach that draws on students’ life experiences and cultural backgrounds • An emphasis on maintaining high expectations for learners’ capacity for mastering rigorous content • Strategies for representing concepts in different formats • Stop and Think questions throughout and reflection questions at the end of each chapter • Try It! Implementation activities, student work examples, and classroom transcripts With case studies and activities that provide a solid foundation for teachers’ growth and exploration, this groundbreaking book will help teachers and teacher educators engage in meaningful, humanized mathematics instruction.