MATHEMATICS COLLOQUIUM
FEBRUARY 18TH, 2013
This Colloquium session will be held in
179 Grace Dodge Hall, beginning with a light informal supper and discussion at
6:30 PM, and the colloquium lecture from 7:30PM to 9:00PM.
"Word Problems as a Window into the Nature of Mathematics Teaching"
Daniel Chazan is a professor in the Department of Teaching and
Learning, Policy and Leadership at The University of Maryland
College Park and Director of the Center for Mathematics Education.
Dr. Chazan is a co-PI on the Mid-Atlantic Center for Mathematics
Teaching and Learning (MACMTL), a grant which supports doctoral
students interested in becoming teacher educators and
mathematics education researchers. Dr. Chazan has also been PI
on a series of Improving Teacher Quality grants that support an
innovative masters program for elementary-certified, middlegrades, mathematics teachers. Chazan’s professional interests
include: student-centered mathematics teaching, the potential of
history and philosophy of mathematics for informing such
teaching, the role of technology in supporting student classroom
exploration, exploring possibilities for constructive links between
educational scholarship and practice, and the preparation of future
teachers. Together with Patricio Herbst of the University of
Michigan, he is co-PI on Thought Experiments in Mathematics
Education (ThEMaT).
~Abstract~
.
Word problems, a long-standing tool in mathematics teaching, have
been described as part of the “peculiar tribal culture of the
American classroom”
(Greer,
1997,
p.
298).
The
Thought Experiments in Mathematics Teaching (ThEMaT project) is
aimed at better understanding the rationality of teaching practice
in US classrooms, including aspects of teaching that have
frustrated
reformers.
We
argue
for
the
importance of understanding ways in which mathematics teaching
is an interaction that takes place in a particular institutional
context and that is shaped by the particular mathematics being
studied
and
taught.
Using word problems in the algebra class as a context, in this talk,
I
will
illustrate
a
method,
which
is modeled
on
“breaching experiments,” for studying tacit norms that govern
classroom interaction around particular mathematical content. The
method involves showing teachers animations and slideshows of
interactions taking
place
in
an illustrated
classroom
context between cartoon figures that represent teachers and
students. In these illustrated interactions, teachers and students
sometimes act in ways that are intended not to be typical ways
of acting in mathematics classrooms.
PROFESSOR
DANIEL CHAZAN
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
CENTER FOR MATHEMATICS
EDUCATION
Initial results from teacher study groups and pilot
surveys examining animations and slideshows
involving
the
teaching
and learning
of
word problems suggest that norms for the doing
of word problems in school are in flux,
particularly when it comes to the role of
equations in doing a word problem in an Algebra
class.
Program in Mathematics, Teachers College, Columbia University 323 Thompson Hall (212) 678-3381 tcmath@tc.edu
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