Thesis advisor: Lillie Albert / Enrollment in a Catholic elementary school has been shown to have a negative impact on student achievement in mathematics (Elder & Jepsen, 2013; Lubienski & Lubienski, 2006; Reardon et al., 2009). A child's mathematics achievement in early elementary school affects on her academic future beyond mathematics alone (CBMS, 2012). The importance of young students' experiences coupled with evidence of a negative impact of Catholic school enrollment on mathematics achievement indicates a need for changes in the mathematical instruction provided in Catholic elementary schools. Professional development can provoke change in mathematical instruction (National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2008). This study examined the use of the Student Participation in Meaning-Making and Reasoning (SPMMR) domain of the Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI) tool as an analysis framework in a video-based professional development for teachers of grades K-3 in an urban Catholic school. First, I designed and delivered a professional development program featuring the MQI SPMMR domain and facilitating connections between the professional learning environment and the elementary classroom. Second, I investigated the experience of teachers in the PD program, as well as its impact on their lesson planning and reflection practices. Findings showed that participants incorporated elements of the SPMMR domain into their work in the classroom with evidence of an increased attention to elements of SPMMR in lesson planning, instruction, and reflective practices. This can be helpful for professional development providers and Catholic school leaders as they plan professional learning opportunities for teachers. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Thesis advisor: Robert J. Starratt / Often educational researchers believe that the way to get teacher groups to improve their own teaching is to have them work in groups, share common assessments, look at the results, and choose the approach of the teacher who achieved the most success. Teachers, however, often resist this approach to identifying a "best practice" because it creates a competitive climate in which one teacher will be identified as the best. Conversations about teaching, when they do occur, thus often remain superficial. Teachers most often say to each other that they respect each other's approach; when they do disagree, they focus briefly on ideological differences and then move on to another topic before identifying the specific instructional techniques that work. This dynamic persists in all schools, but particularly in high performing schools in which most students are succeeding, teachers choose to avoid these difficult conversations and thus avoid close examination of their practices. This study examines a leadership project that strove to draw teachers into fruitful conversations about best practice by diminishing competitiveness within the group. Rather than asking them to compare student performance on common assessments, and identify the teacher whose students did the best, the Principal/Researcher focused teachers on the goal of establishing a common approach to teaching certain math topics. In order to find this common approach, teachers had to examine their practices very closely, adopting some new ones but keeping the ones that worked. Rather than the work of one teacher, the "best practice" that the group members chose was a synthesis of strong teaching methods from all members of the group. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.

The Finnish school system has figured prominently in the PISA international assessments for over 10 years. Many reasons are given for Finnish success yet few of them focus on what is happening in the mathematics classroom. This study addresses the question of “What does mathematics instruction in the Finnish mathematics classroom look like?” Eight Finnish mathematics classes, from 6th – 9th grade were recorded, translated, and analyzed using the Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI) 2013 video coding protocol. Other aspects and observations of these classes also are discussed. Although the study is small, this study gives a view into the nature of some Finnish mathematics classrooms.

We are currently witnessing an increase of international interest in mathematics education, fueled partly by the growing concerns of students’ declining results, but also by changed perceptions of what mathematics students should master. In response, many initiatives have appeared in order to move away from traditional to more inquiry based approaches to teaching. Though several small-scale studies have contributed much to our understanding on how to support teachers in this work, there is still a lack of research conducted on a larger scale. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to add to our knowledge of how to support instructional improvement at scale. This is done by focusing on two common approaches to support mathematics teachers’ development of reform based practices: teacher professional development [PD] programs and curriculum materials. The thesis builds on four papers which are all connected to a project aiming at improving the mathematics instruction in a large Swedish municipality. The project includes a PD-program for almost 400 elementary teachers and the mathematics curriculum materials that teachers are using play a central role in the program. The first two papers focus on curriculum materials either by using surveys to compare teachers’ views of the support offered in the materials and their reported mathematics instruction, or by conducting textbook analyses to characterize how some commonly used materials communicate about, for example, goals of lessons. The results demonstrate that teachers using different materials experience different levels of support from them and also show variations in their reported instruction. These differences are further reflected in the textbook analyses which show that the materials offer teachers various support, for example regarding how they communicate about goals. The last two papers focus on teacher PD-programs either by comparing the effects of two programs on student achievement, or by using surveys to examine teachers’ views of one of the programs and its impact on their reported instruction. The results indicate that the two PD-programs have affected students’ achievement in different ways, demonstrating both decline and improvement. Even within the programs differences are revealed between students at the primary and secondary levels. These variations are further present in the teacher surveys, where the results show differences between teachers from different grade-levels. By drawing on the literature review and the results of the papers, the thesis ends with a discussion of possible elaborations of a widely used core conceptual framework for studying teacher PD.

Educators and educational researchers constantly strive to find effective instructional methods that meet the needs of struggling students. There is a well-established relationship between self-regulated learning and academic achievement. Therefore, a great deal of research has been conducted examining the effectiveness of interventions designed to develop self-regulated learning sub-processes including goal setting, help-seeking behavior, self-monitoring, and causal attributions. One particular sub-process that has gained significant attention is self-motivation beliefs, which includes goal orientation. Developing a growth mindset, or the belief that that intelligence is malleable, has been found to increase student learning. Intelligent tutoring systems have also been incorporated into K-12 education to help differentiate instruction and improve learning outcomes. There have been several empirical studies that have attempted to develop help-seeking behavior and growth mindset with interventions delivered by intelligent tutoring systems. Initially, the goal of this dissertation was to increase student learning by developing self-regulated learning through the use of an intelligent tutoring system. Preliminary attempts failed to modify student beliefs and behavior. As a result, a series of additional randomized controlled trials were conducted. This dissertation is a compilation of those studies, which attempted to leverage ASSISTments, an intelligent tutoring system, to improve student learning in mathematics. Each randomized controlled trial introduced an intervention, based on prior work, designed to address at least one aspect of self-regulated learning and measure the effect on learning. Most of the studies were unsuccessful in producing significant changes in either self-regulation or learning, failing to support the findings of prior research. Survey results suggest that students are reluctant to engage in certain self-regulated learning behaviors, like self-recording, because of the frustration caused when answering a question incorrectly. Based on the findings from these studies, recommendations for potential interventions and future research are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate 7th-grade students&rsquo / typical errors and possible misconceptions in graphs concept before and after the regular mathematics instruction. The study was conducted in an elementary school in the 2nd semester of 2009-2010 academic year in Afyonkarahisar. A mathematics teacher and 71 7th-grade students participated in the study. The data were collected through achievement tests administered to the students before and after the instruction and interviews conducted with the teachers and the selected eight students based on the results of the pretest and posttest. The teacher&rsquo / s instruction was also observed. Students were not exposed to a special treatment, but rather the influence of regular mathematics instruction on a group of 7th-grade students from the four classes taught by the same teacher was investigated. The results of data analysis indicated that 7th-grade students had common typical errors and possible misconceptions about the usage, construction, reading, and interpretation of line, bar, and circle graphs before and after the regular instruction. The comparison of pretest and posttest results showed that while there were differences between the students&rsquo / errors and misconceptions in pretest and posttest, some misconceptions were decreased or increased, or did not change from pretest to posttest. The interviews conducted with the selected students addressed that the students had errors and misconceptions in graphs concept. Findings of the observation of teacher&rsquo / s instruction showed that the teacher did not fully discover and prevent students&rsquo / typical errors and possible misconceptions. Moreover, the findings of the interview conducted with the teacher indicated that her knowledge of students&rsquo / errors and misconceptions were limited. The results of this study showed that teachers&rsquo / planning was important in understanding students&rsquo / typical errors and possible misconceptions. Inservice training of teachers should put more emphasize in effective planning and understanding students&rsquo / typical errors and possible misconceptions.

This study examined implementing the online website Khan Academy as a primary resource for mathematics instruction. Participants were high school students aged 15-18 years enrolled in the traditional mathematics courses of Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2. A pre-test/post-test research design was implemented over the course of a six-week period of instruction. I wanted to examine whether Khan Academy was associated with positive learning outcomes over the six-week period as compared to measures of normalized growth. Additionally, I asked whether a beta program to personalize instruction on Khan Academy was associated with statistically significantly better outcomes compared to the regular Khan Academy course sequences alone. To address my questions, I randomly assigned students into treatment and comparison groups. As a measure of learning growth, I used the Northwest Education Assessment’s Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) to establish a pre-treatment baseline and again at the end of the program to measure learning growth. I compared before and after means. Overall, I found that students in both groups showed overall positive growth, statistically significantly different from normal expected growth. However, I did not find a statistically significant difference between the two groups. In terms of practical implementation, the results of this study suggest that use of Khan Academy as a primary instructional resource is associated with positive learning outcomes in this data set. Further study with larger sample sizes to confirm these preliminary results is recommended.

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Hur upplever och integrerar pedagoger, i grundskolan, matematik i tematiskt arbete. För att undersöka detta genomfördes åtta intervjuer med pedagoger, på skolor i Sverige, som profilerar sig med tematiskt arbete på deras hemsida. Metoden som valdes för att genomföra undersökningen var kvalitativa intervjuer. Resultatet visade att matematik är det ämne som pedagoger är sämst på att integrera. Det visades sig även att pedagoger upplever matematik som det svåraste ämne att integrera i sin tematiska undervisning, vilket även forskning visat.