The Role of VoiceThread in Supporting Effective Mathematical Discussions Online

2020 ◽  
pp. 41-54
Author(s):  
Chrystal Dean ◽  
Tracy Goodson-Espy
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Design Experiment ◽  
Think Aloud ◽  
Advanced Mathematics ◽  
Mathematical Concepts ◽  
Doctoral Level ◽  
The Face ◽  
Summer Session ◽  
And Mathematics

This chapter describes two contexts where VoiceThread (VT), embedded within a Moodle-based learning management system (LMS), was utilized in mathematics and mathematics education instruction. In context one, a design experiment occurred in summer session 2018 within a hybrid advanced mathematics content and methods course for prospective elementary teachers enrolled in an accelerated master's degree program. Specific examples of tasks completed using VT are highlighted describing how the online work fueled the face-to-face discussions. The second design experiment context used VT in an online doctoral level quantitative methods course to encourage students to use a “think-aloud” process for explaining how they solved statistics problems and to help them articulate the locations within problems that presented hurdles. The “think-aloud” approach was also used in the first course but was more of a focus in the second course. In both contexts, VT was a tool that facilitated communication about mathematical concepts.

Comparing Student Attitudes to Spreadsheet and Advanced Statistical Packages

2020 ◽  
pp. 009862832097726
Author(s):  
Angela R. Surrusco ◽  
Zachary J. Kunicki ◽  
Sarah L. DiPerri ◽  
Marie C. Tate ◽  
Megan M. Risi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Student Attitudes ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Student Attitude ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Microsoft Excel ◽  
Time Points ◽  
Over Time

The statistical package chosen to aid in teaching quantitative methods is at the instructor’s discretion, but little research has investigated student attitude toward these different packages. This study compared Google Sheets, a spreadsheet package similar to Microsoft Excel, and a traditional package, SPSS, to determine which of the two programs students preferred to use. One hundred and thirty-nine students enrolled in a quantitative methods course completed surveys at the middle and end of the semester during Spring 2016 and Fall 2016. The results suggested Google Sheets was preferred to SPSS at both time points, and attitudes toward Google Sheets improved over time. Further research could investigate the perspectives of students in other levels of experience with statistics and other statistical packages.

scholarly journals You can count on your fingers: The role of fingers in early mathematical development

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Firat Soylu ◽  
Frank K. Lester ◽  
Sharlene D. Newman
Keyword(s):  
Mathematics Education ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Diagnostic Tools ◽  
Mathematical Concepts ◽  
Simple Arithmetic ◽  
Road Map ◽  
Mathematics Ability ◽  
Finger Counting ◽  
Bodily Activity ◽  
And Mathematics

Even though mathematics is considered one of the most abstract domains of human cognition, recent work on embodiment of mathematics has shown that we make sense of mathematical concepts by using insights and skills acquired through bodily activity. Fingers play a significant role in many of these bodily interactions. Finger-based interactions provide the preliminary access to foundational mathematical constructs, such as one-to-one correspondence and whole-part relations in early development. In addition, children across cultures use their fingers to count and do simple arithmetic. There is also some evidence for an association between children’s ability to individuate fingers (finger gnosis) and mathematics ability. Paralleling these behavioral findings, there is accumulating evidence for overlapping neural correlates and functional associations between fingers and number processing. In this paper, we synthesize mathematics education and neurocognitive research on the relevance of fingers for early mathematics development. We delve into issues such as how the early multimodal (tactile, motor, visuospatial) experiences with fingers might be the gateway for later numerical skills, how finger gnosis, finger counting habits, and numerical abilities are associated at the behavioral and neural levels, and implications for mathematics education. We argue that, taken together, the two bodies of research can better inform how different finger skills support the development of numerical competencies, and we provide a road map for future interdisciplinary research that can yield to development of diagnostic tools and interventions for preschool and primary grade classrooms.

Beyond Practicalism

Utopophobia ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 304-315
Author(s):  
David Estlund
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Intellectual Work ◽  
Math And Science ◽  
The Face ◽  
And Mathematics

This chapter argues against “practicalism.” It shows that it is very plausible that some things must be of intrinsic value, that is, apart from what they can be used to produce. A narrower practicalism might hold that intellectual work in particular is never of intrinsic value, and so is worthless unless it is of practical value. The chapter contends that this flies in the face of some robust views about the value of some intellectual work in science and mathematics. This leaves two problems of special interest here: first, so far, even if that point makes general intellectual practicalism appear implausible, it has no tendency to show that nonpractical philosophy, or in particular political philosophy, might be of intrinsic value. They might lack whatever it is about nonpractical yet important math and science that makes them important. This leads to the second problem, which is that even if those examples tend to refute practicalism, they do not yet provide any account of what is valuable about them.

Semantic Realism

1998 ◽  
pp. 6-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Landry
Keyword(s):  
Category Theory ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Philosophical Study ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Mathematical Concepts ◽  
Ontological Realism ◽  
Semantic Realism ◽  
And Mathematics

I argue that if we distinguish between ontological realism and semantic realism, then we no longer have to choose between platonism and formalism. If we take category theory as the language of mathematics, then a linguistic analysis of the content and structure of what we say in and about mathematical theories allows us to justify the inclusion of mathematical concepts and theories as legitimate objects of philosophical study. Insofar as this analysis relies on a distinction between ontological and semantic realism, it relies also on an implicit distinction between mathematics as a descriptive science and mathematics as a descriptive discourse. It is this latter distinction which gives rise to the tension between the mathematician qua philosopher. In conclusion, I argue that the tensions between formalism and platonism, indeed between mathematician and philosopher, arise because of an assumption that there is an analogy between mathematical talk and talk in the physical sciences.

scholarly journals The use of statistical methods by MBA graduates in South African management and its implications for curriculum design

1994 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 86-93
Author(s):  
Trevor Wegner ◽  
Stephanie Stray ◽  
Peter Naudé
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Statistical Methods ◽  
Curriculum Design ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Teaching Strategy ◽  
Target Population ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Course Planning ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Similar Survey

With this study we aim to identify the degree of penetration of statistical methods in South African management. Consequently, that section of the management population with past exposure to quantitative methods is targetted. Thus the target population was all MBA alumni from South African Business Schools operating in South African companies. A response rate of 27% (408 usable responses) was achieved. The findings of this study correlate highly with those of a similar survey conducted in the United Kingdom in 1991. In addition to reporting these findings, we also sought to examine the implications of these results on future statistical methods course planning. We recommend a change in teaching strategy to promote greater utilization of this discipline in practice.

Constructivism in Synchronous and Asynchronous Virtual Learning Environments for a Research Methods Course

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 50-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth David Strang
Keyword(s):  
Research Methods ◽  
Educational Psychology ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Academic Outcome ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Face ◽  
Student Grades ◽  
Teaching Modality

Virtual learning is a popular teaching modality, and it has been reported in research that there is no significant difference in academic outcome as compared with face-to-face courses. Not all researchers agree with this assertion and some claim it is more difficult to teach math-oriented subjects online. Given that educational psychology theories are effective for teaching quantitative topics in the face-to-face modality, this study proposes and tests methods for virtual learning. Constructivism learning theory is applied using knowledge management principles to teach an online masters-level research methods course at an Australian university. Asynchronous and synchronous tools are used in the VLE, and contrasted in a controlled experiment. The hypothesis is student grades will be significantly higher when the constructivist instructional method is applied to the synchronous VLE.

They’re Moving in Spaces They’re Not Used to: Examining the Racialized Experiences of African American Students in a High School STEAM Academy

2020 ◽  
pp. 001312452092861
Author(s):  
Edward C. Fletcher ◽  
Victor M. Hernandez-Gantes
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
African American ◽  
School Administrators ◽  
School Personnel ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Student Experiences ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Job Shadowing ◽  
The Face ◽  
And Mathematics

In this study, we explored how an urban high school with a STEAM (Science, Technology, Arts, and Mathematics) theme approached racialized student experiences as learning opportunities. We were interested in documenting curricular and pedagogical practices, and the mission of the STEAM Academy, which was aimed at exposing African American/Black students to possibilities beyond the school including university settings and workplace environments (through job shadowing and internships). Based on the perspectives of school personnel and community partners, we found the school administrators and teachers enacted social justice–centered curricular strategies to elicit emancipatory and participatory actions for administrators, teachers, and students. This type of curriculum for students helped them cope with the stressors of encountering racialized experiences and microaggressions in the school and beyond; thereby, enabling them to be resilient in the face of a discriminatory and oppressive society.

Forum on teacher preparation: A mathematics laboratory for prospective teachers

1970 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-78
Author(s):  
David M. Clarkson
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Prospective Teachers ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Mathematical Activity ◽  
Schools Of Education ◽  
Mathematics Methods ◽  
Open Problems ◽  
School Officials ◽  
Mathematics Methods Course ◽  
And Mathematics

The Report of the Cambridge Conference on the Correlation of Science and Mathematics in the Schools recommends that schools of education plan programs of “apprentice teaching in the schools, including work with materials of the sort being developed in new curriculum projects.”1 A group of mathematics educators in England has urged the use of courses emphasizing problem solving: “It is the exploration of these more open problems which we feel to be the essential characteristic of real mathematical activity.”2 A loud chorus of opinion suggests that courses in methodology should be jointly planned and executed by both mathematicians and educators and that they should involve practical work with children. When the opportunity to design an experimental elementary mathematics methods course was offered the writer, he decided to emphasize the mathematics laboratory approach which gives an important role to problem solving. Conferences with members of the mathematics and education departments, as well as with school officials, paved the way for the experiment; the sympathetic support of the chairman of the division of education at the college made it possible financially.

The Effects on Preservice Elementary Teachers of Learning Mathematics and Means of Teaching Mathematics through the Active Manipulation of Materials

1975 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-63
Author(s):  
Karen Fuson
Keyword(s):  
Elementary Teachers ◽  
Preservice Elementary Teachers ◽  
Methods Course ◽  
Teaching Mathematics ◽  
Actual Behavior ◽  
Mathematics Methods ◽  
Learning Mathematics ◽  
Actual Use ◽  
Primary Means ◽  
And Mathematics

This study examines some effects on preservice elementary teachers of a combined mathematics and mathematics methods course that used manipulative materials as the primary means of learning. The effects investigated were changes in trainee desire to use, ability to use, and actual use of manipulative materials in teaching; changes in trainee desire or actual behavior with respect to teaching in a learner-focused manner; changes in trainee understanding of elementary mathematics; differences between learning in a concrete, physical way and learning in a symbolic, abstract way; and changes in trainee attitudes of enjoyment of and feelings of competence in teaching mathematics.

Tennis, Anyone?

2005 ◽  
Vol 98 (9) ◽  
pp. 586-592
Author(s):  
Ted R. Hodgson ◽  
Maurice J. Burke
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Advanced Mathematics ◽  
Mathematical Concepts ◽  
Skill Levels ◽  
Basic Properties ◽  
Solution Strategies ◽  
Real World Setting ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Mathematical Techniques

In this article, we present an engaging problem that is accessible to students at a variety of grade and skill levels. The problem is drawn from a common, real–world setting (tennis) and illustrates how a single problem can be solved in many ways by using increasingly powerful mathematics. We present these solution strategies as a sequence, beginning with informal hands–on activities and progressing to more formal and advanced mathematics. By considering the variety of solution strategies and by seeing how advanced mathematical techniques arise from basic properties and phenomena, students can develop a connected view of mathematics. The tennis problem allows students to develop an understanding of mathematical concepts and methods in a bounded setting.

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