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The second semester of the high school senior year has been associated with a lack of motivation among students and increased frustrations among parents and teachers. This qualitative study examines the achievement goals and engagement outcomes of second semester high school seniors in their mathematics classes. Data were collected from eight high school seniors, three of their parents, and two teachers enrolled at an all male college preparatory school in Pennsylvania. In-depth interviews were used to gather participants’ definitions of success prior to their senior year and during the second semester of their senior year. Student participants’ behavioral, emotional and cognitive engagements were assessed through directed interview questions and observations. Data were analyzed using a three goal framework of task-involvement, ego-involvement, and work-avoidance (Nicholls, Patashnick, & Nolen, 1985). The participants’ definitions of success suggested four themes. First, student participants defined success in mathematics consistently as they recalled their four years of high school and transition into the second semester of their senior year. Second, the phenomenon of senioritis was found to be more perceived than real for most of the participants. The work-avoidant participants described feeling the effects of senioritis for most of the second semester whereas the task-involved and ego-involved students reported brief effects before regaining focus. Third, students’ achievement goals in mathematics were found to be more closely aligned to their parents’ goals and less aligned to their teachers’ goals. Lastly, students described different achievement goals from one class to another during the same semester, at times even within the same discipline. Implications for practice and suggestions for future research were also discussed. / Math & Science Education

An operational definition of Systemic Reform is used to document a case study of mathematics education reforms occurring in the mathematics classrooms of one middle school in one school division in one state. The middle school had two lead teachers who participated in the training component of a National Science Foundation-funded state-wide Systemic Reform Initiative. Systemic Reform conceptualized reform as combining bottom-up reform with top-down support. Therefore, the research methodology confronted the challenges of the breadth and complexity of Systemic Reform through the use of selective data in the form of artifacts, interviews, and observations from four populations: (1) classroom teachers, (2) building administrators, (3) district administrators, and (4) state-level staff. The study was conducted at four levels over a five-year period to provide the focus for longitudinal data collection to document: (1) the status of mathematics education during the 1995-96 primary data collection year, (2) the evolution of mathematics education reform over the course of the five year period, and (3) the manner in which Systemic Reform occurred. All levels of educators involved made an initial five-year commitment as active participants in the State's Systemic Reform Initiative, but only the Lead Teacher actually carried through with this commitment. After the first year division-level administrators shifted the focus of reform efforts to the elementary schools and discontinued support for the middle schools; after the second year both the division and state-level administrators withdrew all support. Although changes were made at the school level which supported reform in mathematics education (i.e., adoption of constructivist-type instructional materials, purchase of classroom sets of manipulatives and calculators, implementation of block scheduling, and the organization of teachers in interdisciplinary teams) the necessary changes in technology, curriculum and assessment were not in place to support the reform efforts. Through the perseverance of the Lead Teacher some changes in mathematics classrooms were documented, but the lack of consistent administrative leadership/support and emphasis on multiple reforms ended in the all to common bandwagon phenomena at the building, division and state levels so characteristic of change efforts in schools. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this research was to examine the effect on students' mathematics achievement and attitudes when children's literature was integrated into the mathematics curriculum. A major goal of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM, 1999; 2000) is for students to increase the amount and quality of their mathematical communication skills. This study researched how children's literature when integrated into mathematics might enrich the fourth grade curriculum and provide meaningful experiences for students to communicate their ideas and reasoning, thereby improving achievement. Through my research, I examined if infusing quality children's literature can improve student achievement and motivation in mathematics with three different treatment groups of fourth grade students. The children's literature treatment group received a mathematics lesson integrating children's literature, the textbook treatment group received a textbook-based lesson, and the control treatment group received no instruction. The results indicated that the students who received a lesson had an increase in student achievement and the children's literature treatment group had the highest student achievement in problem solving. Attitudes across all groups did not improve from the one lesson; thus, further research will need to be conducted to see if multiple lessons can change students' attitudes positively.

The aim of the study was to investigate what influence the use of computers using MS Excel and RJS Graph software has on grade 11 Eritrean students' understanding of functions in the learning of mathematics. An empirical investigation using quantitative and qualitative research methods was carried out. A pre-test (task 1) and a post-test (task 2), a questionnaire and an interview schedule were used to collect data. Two randomly selected sample groups (i.e. experimental and control groups) of students were involved in the study. The experimental group learned the concepts of functions, particularly quadratic functions using computers. The control group learned the same concepts through the traditional paper-pencil method. The results indicated that the use of computers has a positive impact on students' understanding of functions as reflected in their achievement, problem-solving skills, motivation, attitude and the classroom environment. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Math Education)

The diploma thesis deals with ways of teaching combinatorics at a secondary school. Specifically, I analyzed selected mathematics textbooks for secondary schools in terms of introducing concepts and operations of combinatorics and in terms of types of tasks used. I carried out interviews with six secondary school mathematics teachers and observations of their lessons in order to describe their method of teaching combinatorics. Using results of tests written by these teachers' pupils, I examined whether and how their solving strategies and errors might be influenced by their teachers' approach to teaching combinatorics. Finally, I compared my results with the existing results of mathematics education research on pupils' combinatorial reasoning. The work is divided into four chapters; the first three are theoretical (curricular documents for selected schools, analysis of textbooks on combinatorics in terms of the implementation of combinatorial concepts and operations, selected research about pupils' solving strategies and errors for combinatorial problems, methods of checking the correctness of their solutions. and the impact of ways of teaching combinatorics on pupils' performance). Chapter 4 focuses on my own research which consists of interviews with teachers, observations of lessons on combinatorics, the...

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-04T21:14:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 12 / Bolsa para curso e programa de Pós Graduação / Esta tese é fruto de uma pesquisa realizada com o objetivo de analisar os discursos sobre a escola e a matemática escolar de um grupo de colonos, descendentes de alemães e evangélico-luteranos, que freqüentavam uma escola rural do município de Estrela-RS, quando da efetivação dos decretos que instituíram a Campanha de Nacionalização – uma das medidas do Estado Novo (1937-1945), implementado no Brasil por Getúlio Vargas. Os aportes teóricos que sustentam a investigação são as teorizações pós-estruturalistas, na vertente vinculada ao pensamento de Michel Foucault, e o campo da Etnomatemática, em uma perspectiva construída com o apoio das formulações de Ludwig Wittgenstein em sua obra Investigações Filosóficas. O material de pesquisa examinado consiste em: narrativas produzidas por três mulheres e quatro homens que estudaram naquela escola no período enfocado; cartilhas de matemática e cadernos de cópia e ditado usados na referida instituição; e o texto, intitulado “As escolas do passado”, elaborado por um dos p / This thesis is the result of a research carried out with the aim to analyze the discourses on school and school mathematics of a group of German-descendant, Evangelic-Lutheran settlers who attended a rural school in Estrela-RS, at the time of the Nationalization Campaign – one of the actions taken during the Estado Novo (1937-1945), by Getúlio Vargas in Brazil. The theoretical grounds of the investigation are the post-structuralist theorizations, related to Michel Foucault’s thinking as well as to the field of Ethnomathematics, in a perspective constructed with the support of formulations of Ludwig Wittgenstein in his work Philosophical Investigations. The research material consisted of narratives produced by three women and four men who studied at the school during that period; mathematics textbooks and exercise books for copy and dictation used at the institution, and the text entitled “Schools of the past” , written by one of the participants of the research. The analytical exercise performed with the us

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T16:57:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marcia Maioli.pdf: 1743976 bytes, checksum: 9544533ab3da7d2f0ca7533934544bf2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-06-11 / This is a theoretical research that studies the contextualization established on national curricular documents as one of the pedagogic principles that structure the curricula on High School. The study stands for the contextualization as a potentially rich pedagogic principle to improve mathematic learning by the students, but it needs to be understood in its purposes and uses by different actors. For such, the investigation was developed based on bibliographic sources that involve studies about learning, comparison of meanings and language; curricular documents for High School; researches about contextualization on mathematical teaching and, aiming at investigating how are developed activities inspired on the contextualization of curricula that are practiced in class; it is also considered the set of dissertations involving Hypothetical Learning Paths developed on the research project in which this work is inserted. It could be verified that the contextualization implementation was not a simple action - nor even for professionals that are in touch with researches or theories that concern Mathematical Education. The National Curricular Parameters for High School outline that contextualizing the content that is aimed to be learned means, primarily, to assume that all knowledge involves a relation between subject and object. The idea of knowledge as a network of meanings defended by Machado and Pires; the process by which more relevant and inclusive concepts are presented is one in which the learner´s cognitive structure interacts with a new material presented to them as defended by Ausubel; the role of instruments and signs as mediators on the conversion of social relations according to higher mental functions considered by the studies of Vygotsky; the different language conceptions explored by Koch provide important clues about the relation processing between learning subject and study object. The contextualization is strongly related to the assignment of meanings to what is learned, and therefore, it embraces a cognitive aspect that cannot be neglected. Besides that, for the perspective established of learning, 10 knowledge is the product of activity context and culture in which it is developed and used, so the scholar culture influence cannot be ignored concerning what is learned in it / Esta é uma pesquisa teórica que estuda a contextualização estabelecida em documentos curriculares nacionais como um dos princípios pedagógicos estruturadores dos currículos do Ensino Médio. O estudo defende que a contextualização é um princípio pedagógico potencialmente rico para melhorar a aprendizagem matemática dos alunos, mas precisa ser compreendida em seus propósitos e usos pelos diferentes atores do processo de ensino e aprendizagem. Partindo desse ponto, delinearam-se os objetivos: investigar a contextualização como princípio pedagógico e construir conhecimentos que permitam a compreensão de seus propósitos e usos. Para tanto, a investigação foi desenvolvida com base em fontes bibliográficas envolvendo estudos sobre aprendizagem, aferição de significados e linguagem; documentos curriculares voltados ao Ensino Médio; pesquisas sobre contextualização no ensino de matemática e, visando investigar como se desenvolvem atividades inspiradas na contextualização nos currículos praticados em sala de aula, considerou-se também o conjunto de dissertações envolvendo Trajetórias Hipotéticas de Aprendizagem desenvolvidas no projeto de pesquisa em que este trabalho se insere. Constata-se que a implementação da contextualização não é uma ação simples, nem mesmo para profissionais que estão em contato com pesquisas ou teorias sobre Educação Matemática. Os Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais - Ensino Médio destacam que contextualizar o conteúdo que se quer aprendido significa, em primeiro lugar, assumir que todo conhecimento envolve uma relação entre sujeito e objeto. A ideia de conhecimento como rede de significações defendidas por Machado e Pires; o processo por meio do qual conceitos mais relevantes e inclusivos, presentes na estrutura cognitiva do aprendiz, interagem com um novo material apresentado a ele, conforme defende Ausubel; o papel dos instrumentos e signos como mediadores na conversão de relações sociais em funções mentais superiores, considerados pelos estudos de Vygotsky; as 8 diferentes concepções de linguagem exploradas por Koch, fornecem pistas importantes sobre a forma como se processa a relação entre sujeito que aprende e objeto de estudo. A contextualização está fortemente relacionada à atribuição de significados ao que se aprende, portanto, abrange um aspecto cognitivo que não pode ser negligenciado. Além disso, para a perspectiva situada da aprendizagem o conhecimento é produto da atividade, contexto e cultura na qual ele é desenvolvido e usado, assim, não se pode ignorar a influência da cultura escolar sobre o que nela se aprende

This study compared the effect of the use of physical manipulative with self-metacognitive questioning versus manipulative without self-metacognitive questioning on the knowledge acquisition in polygons. Participants were 220 sixth grade students. A pretest, treatment and posttest two-group design was used. There were two treatment groups: manipulative with self-metacognitive questioning (MAN+META) and manipulative without self-metacognitive questioning (MAN) Three distinct knowledge tests were designed by the researcher: Declarative, conditional and procedural. Declarative knowledge test consisted of 18 multiple-choice questions. The conditional and procedural knowledge tests consisted of six and ten open-ended questions respectively. Mixed design analysis of variance results revealed that there is a significant effect for time but no group-by-time interaction effect suggesting that both groups responded equally well to treatment in the amount of change in their scores on the two outcome measures: pretests and posttests. A follow up analysis (paired t-test) was conducted to evaluate the impact of time on students&rsquo / pretest and posttest scores. The large effect size indicated that there was a statistically significant increase in scores of all three tests.