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- Brehmer, Daniel, 1973-
(författare)
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Support for mathematics teachers’ change : Examining catalysts for teacher learning and role of the teacher in professional development programmes
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- When the perception changes regarding what mathematics students should be able to manage, this is typically addressed through a new national curriculum. To establish and implement this new curriculum in practice, teachers must be given the opportunity to change according to it. For such change, they need support in interpreting and implementing the new curriculum. Typically, there are two common ways to support teacher change: (1) developing and launching curriculum materials that correspond to the national curriculum; and (2) implementing professional development programmes (PDPs) that correspond to the new national curriculum. This thesis includes both aspects and aims to contribute to research on support for mathematics teachers’ change. This aim is operationalized by: (1) studying mathematics textbooks in which tasks and plausible teaching intentions are analysed; (2) studying teacher agency in collegial discussions in relation to the design of a PDP; and (3) mapping and describing catalysts for teacher learning from PDPs in research literature. These studies resulted in five papers, which are included in this thesis. The main results of the papers cover: the distribution of types of tasks in Swedish mathematics textbooks; the type of learning approach advocated in these textbooks; how different types of texts in PDPs relate to teacher agency in collegial discussions; and an identification and description of catalysts for teacher learning from PDPs for mathematics teachers. In the kappa1 of this thesis, these results are merged and discussed in relation to different models of teacher change. The focus in the kappa is on examining catalysts for teacher learning from such initiatives and the role of the teacher in PDPs. This examination suggests elaborations on parts of a conceptual framework for effective PDPs (Desimone, 2009). More precisely, the elaborations concern core critical features for effective PDPs, presented in this framework: Content Focus, Active Learning, Collective Participation, Duration, and Coherence. The main contributions of this thesis concern: a tool for analysing tasks in textbooks with respect to problem-solving tasks; an organizing frame for mapping learning catalysts from articles describing PDPs; a description of catalysts for teacher learning from PDPs as specifications of core critical features for effective PDPs; and the role of the teacher in PDPs as a catalyst for learning. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.___________________________1The Swedish term kappa will be used in this thesis in the absence of an equivalent English term for the introductory chapters of an aggregation dissertation
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| 2. |
- Fredriksdotter, Hanna
(författare)
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Young students’ mathematical argumentation in social interaction : Video-based observations of student-student interaction during everyday work in the mathematics classroom
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Previous research indicates that students benefit from engaging in mathematical problem-solving activities together with peers. The aim of this thesis was to increase the knowledge of how social interaction can contribute to shaping young students’ mathematical argumentation. The analysis was based on a dialogical perspective on communication. In particular, an ethnomethodological approach was applied to the analysis of students’ social interaction while engaging in discussions about solutions to mathematical tasks. Students’ contributions to interaction were analysed using Conversation Analysis and multimodal analysis. In addition, the contents of students’ explanations, justifications and generalisations were analysed according to procedures of qualitative content analysis. The empirical material consisted of video recordings of naturally occurring interaction during mathematics lessons in two grade-6 classrooms (i.e., among students who are 11–12 years old). Findings were presented in four studies. Study I indicated that the mathematical argumentation among students working in the same classroom can orient towards very different social and sociomathematical norms. Study II focused on students’ use of different types of justifications, showing that their general arguments consistently built on (and agreed with) results of preceding examinations of particular examples. In Study III, students’ strategies of handling differing proposals were analysed, which showed that students often solicited explanations of peers’ proposals by commenting on or asking questions about them without explicitly criticising them. Moreover, when students conceded to someone else’s proposal and rejected their own, concessions and rejections were marked by affect-laden and/or embodied acts, indicating an urgency to display a change of state. In addition, marking their concessions may be part of students’ ways of displaying independent epistemic access to the mathematical task as well as to the differing proposal. Focusing on students’ methods of co-constructing general arguments, Study IV confirmed the importance of having access to and building on others’ arguments. In addition, Study IV showed how the use of linguistic resources can indicate that students have identified regularities and/or transferred known mathematical facts into a new context.The detailed analysis of students’ argumentation while engaging in mathematical problem solving with peers emphasised the reflexive relation between “social” and “mathematical” aspects of interaction in the mathematics classroom. The analysis also exemplified how young students’ use of justifications can be a first stage in developing an understanding of formal mathematical proof.
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