Teacher Narratives about Supporting Children to Read and Write in Mathematics: The Case of Kay

Troels Lange; Tamsin Meaney

doi:10.12973/eurasia.2017.00809a

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Troels Lange ¹, Tamsin Meaney ¹ ^*

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¹ Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway^* Corresponding Author

Abstract

The impact on one teacher of a short professional development project run in a school in a low socio-economic area in a small city in rural Australia is investigated in this case study. The project aimed to support teachers to improve students’ writing in mathematics. The teacher’s reflections about her work with a small group of Year 3-4-5 students are discussed in relationship to what supported or hindered her to change her practices. Over the two months of the project, the teacher supported the children to comprehend and produce their own word problems. However, the process of deciding how to change what she did to meet the needs of the students was messy because different combinations of factors affected her willingness to try alternative practices. Her narratives, from watching the videos on her lessons and in joint meetings with the other teachers and researchers, indicated that reflecting on what she was doing contributed to her taking more risks in her teaching. This resulted in the students having more opportunities to use their mathematical literacy skills to comprehend and respond to word problems.

Keywords

professional development
students’ language
mathematics word problems
low socio-economic area
teacher reflection

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, 2017, Volume 13, Issue 7b, 4115-4141

https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2017.00809a

Publication date: 21 Jun 2017

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How to cite this article

APA

Lange, T., & Meaney, T. (2017). Teacher Narratives about Supporting Children to Read and Write in Mathematics: The Case of Kay. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 13(7b), 4115-4141. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2017.00809a

Vancouver

Lange T, Meaney T. Teacher Narratives about Supporting Children to Read and Write in Mathematics: The Case of Kay. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2017;13(7b):4115-41. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2017.00809a

AMA

Lange T, Meaney T. Teacher Narratives about Supporting Children to Read and Write in Mathematics: The Case of Kay. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2017;13(7b), 4115-4141. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2017.00809a

Chicago

Lange, Troels, and Tamsin Meaney. "Teacher Narratives about Supporting Children to Read and Write in Mathematics: The Case of Kay". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education 2017 13 no. 7b (2017): 4115-4141. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2017.00809a

Harvard

Lange, T., and Meaney, T. (2017). Teacher Narratives about Supporting Children to Read and Write in Mathematics: The Case of Kay. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 13(7b), pp. 4115-4141. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2017.00809a

MLA

Lange, Troels et al. "Teacher Narratives about Supporting Children to Read and Write in Mathematics: The Case of Kay". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, vol. 13, no. 7b, 2017, pp. 4115-4141. https://doi.org/10.12973/eurasia.2017.00809a