MSU Professor Receives National Dissertation Award
. Dittika Gupta said she hoped to start a nationaldialogue about early
mathematics curriculum when she chose her dissertationtopic. Now that the
dissertation has won a national award from the SchoolScience Mathematics
Association (SSMA), let the dialogue begin.
Gupta, a 2014 Ph.D. graduate from the Baylor Schoolof Education (SOE) in
Curriculum & Instruction and now Assistant Professor ofCurriculum and
Learning at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, did aqualitative analysis
of data collected by Baylor researchers — including Guptaherself — over a
seven-year longitudinal study on the teaching of fractions tostudents in grades
K-3.
Gupta received the Outstanding Dissertation Awardfor 2015 at the SSMA
national convention Oct. 29-31 in Oklahoma City. Only oneaward is presented
nationally.
Gupta’s case-study analysis showed that studentslearned fractions better if they
had early exposure to basic concepts with anincremental increase in complexity
of the curriculum over several years beforethe introduction of formal, traditional
fraction work.
“Students are always scared of fractions,” Guptasaid. “Even my university
students say they don’t like working with fractions,and they prefer to convert
them to decimals.”
Baylor collected K-3 student data from a local professionaldevelopment school
campus every fall semester from 2007-2013. At the time thestudy began, Texas
curriculum standards incorporated early fraction concepts inkindergarten
curriculum, although the Baylor-developed curriculum was morein-depth. The
earliest concepts include working with counting and division ofindividual items in
a group, like cookies, versus splitting up one item, like apie, to learn about the
fairness of sharing in those contexts.
Now the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills),as well as the national
Common Core standards, do not introduce fraction conceptsuntil third grade,
except for the splitting of a whole into halves or thirds,introduced in second
grade.
“As a result of our study, we found that an earlierexposure is better because it
gives the time and opportunity to developnecessary skills,” Gupta said. “This
Generated on 11/24/2015 10:59:09 PM, by iNews Publisher, Expinion.net
change in TEKS and Common Core is notwise,” she said. “We really do need to
rethink the standards for fractions andthe timing for the introduction of fractions in
the curriculum.”
Gupta said the experience of working with this studyhas launched her on a
crusade to change the national and state curriculumstandards. “I will publish as
much as I can until they actually change thestandards,” she said.
Gupta’s dissertation, titled “Early ElementaryStudents’ Fractional Understanding:
Examination of Cases from a Multi-yearLongitudinal Study,” examined case
studies of students who participated inBaylor’s fraction curriculum, taught in small
groups, for at least three yearsand who had both a pre-test and a post-test for
those years.
She said the sub-group was small because of themobility of students at the
school. The years the students were enrolled werenot always consecutive, and
one student even repeated a grade. “There were manycombinations,” Gupta
said. For those students who missed a year of thecurriculum, she said, a
deficiency showed in their test results. “The level ofunderstanding was greater if
they were in consecutive years rather thannon-consecutive years,” she said.
Dr. Trena Wilkerson, professor and graduate programdirector in the Baylor
SOE’s Department of Curriculum & Instruction, said,“Dittika is someone we
will hear about in the future of mathematics education;she is looking at teaching
and learning of mathematics from a nationalperspective. She is an amazing
teacher and researcher, she is a delight to workwith, and she was an outstanding
scholar as a graduate student here.”
Gupta is a member of the competitive STaR FellowsProgram, which supports the
development of early-career mathematics educatorswith a doctorate. Originally
funded by the National Science Foundation, theprogram is now operated by the
national Association of Mathematics TeacherEducators.
As Wilkerson’s graduate assistant, Gupta wasinvolved in the fraction study for
many years and was part of a summer graduateclass that designed the
curriculum for the study.
Gupta’s dissertation already has prompted articles,which have been published in
the journal Curriculumand Teaching Dialogue, the scholarly journal of the
American Association for Teaching and Curriculum; and the Journal of Research
in Childhood Education. 
Generated on 11/24/2015 10:59:09 PM, by iNews Publisher, Expinion.net
Generated on 11/24/2015 10:59:09 PM, by iNews Publisher, Expinion.net