Title of Presentation or Performance

Mathematics as a Language

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

Education Commons

Share

COinS
 
Apr 18th, 11:00 AM Apr 18th, 12:00 PM

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.

 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.