Submission Type
Event
Expected Graduation Date
2015
Location
State Farm Hall, Illinois Wesleyan University
Start Date
4-18-2015 11:00 AM
End Date
4-18-2015 12:00 PM
Disciplines
Education
Abstract
During my student teaching process, I observed a separation between my students’ procedural knowledge of mathematics, and their mathematical reasoning. I attempted to bridge this gap by conducting research on the role of academic language in the classroom. Academic language is a way to communicate ideas, concepts, and higher thinking processes, but it is used so that students may acquire a greater insight into the material (Gottlieb & Ernst-Slavit, 2013). I specifically discuss how the incorporation of academic language affects student learning as well as possible implementations of academic language in the classroom. I constructed a series of lesson plans that focused on students engaging in mathematics through language and I constructed quizzes that focused on mathematical reasoning and justifying results. I content analyzed the quizzes, department tests, and review assignments using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The results of my analysis demonstrate that the incorporation of academic language into the classroom is beneficial for the students because it forces the students to delve deeply into the mathematics and to find meaning in their work. My results also support that incorporating academic language is beneficial for student learning because it lends more opportunity for teachers to understand student thinking and a result, easily spot misconceptions about topics.
Included in
Mathematics as a Language
State Farm Hall, Illinois Wesleyan University
During my student teaching process, I observed a separation between my students’ procedural knowledge of mathematics, and their mathematical reasoning. I attempted to bridge this gap by conducting research on the role of academic language in the classroom. Academic language is a way to communicate ideas, concepts, and higher thinking processes, but it is used so that students may acquire a greater insight into the material (Gottlieb & Ernst-Slavit, 2013). I specifically discuss how the incorporation of academic language affects student learning as well as possible implementations of academic language in the classroom. I constructed a series of lesson plans that focused on students engaging in mathematics through language and I constructed quizzes that focused on mathematical reasoning and justifying results. I content analyzed the quizzes, department tests, and review assignments using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The results of my analysis demonstrate that the incorporation of academic language into the classroom is beneficial for the students because it forces the students to delve deeply into the mathematics and to find meaning in their work. My results also support that incorporating academic language is beneficial for student learning because it lends more opportunity for teachers to understand student thinking and a result, easily spot misconceptions about topics.