UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
Browse
3 results
Search Results
Item Prospective Teachers' Noticing and Naming of Students' Mathematical Strengths and Support of Students' Participation(2019) Bowen, Diana Leigh; Walkoe, Janet; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation is a sequential qualitative case study that describes how prospective teachers begin to use strengths-based language and support students’ participation after participating in a digital learning experience on noticing and naming students’ mathematical strengths. The central research question guiding this work is: What feedback statements do prospective teachers (PTs) make before and after they receive explicit support for using strengths-based language and is there evidence of PTs’ sustained learning following this support? First, this study collected and analyzed prospective teachers’ feedback statements to students before and after a digital learning experience on noticing and naming students’ mathematical strengths (LessonSketch). The primary analysis used qualitative thematic coding to describe the type of language (strengths-based, mixed language, deficit-based, or uncommitted) used by six prospective teachers when making feedback statements and to qualify feedback statements. The secondary analysis followed two of the prospective teachers into field placements to determine if there was any evidence of sustained learning (as measured by PTs’ reflections on learning and moves in the classroom to support students’ participation). This study found that most (5 of 6) PTs moved from uncommitted or mixed language feedback statements to strengths-based feedback statements as a result of the digital learning experience. PTs went from mostly emerging strengths-based statements on the pre-assessment (20 of 28 statements) to primarily meaningful strengths-based statements on the post-assessment (22 of 28 statements). The overall finding from the secondary analysis is that while both PTs (Alicia and Marissa) showed positive shifts in their moves to support students’ participation only Marissa found the practice of noticing and naming students’ strengths as fundamental to her learning and teaching practice. On the other hand, both cases highlight examples of Marissa and Alicia, making specific and public feedback statements to position students' contributions positively and assign competence to students. Finally, tensions arise when PTs evaluate students’ responses for smartness while continuing to rank students’ responses and emphasize correctness.Item What Can I Do? Preservice Elementary Teachers Developing Understandings of Self as Mathematics Teacher and Teaching in Context(2012) Neumayer DePiper, Jill; Edwards, Ann R; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In order to prepare preservice teachers (PSTs) to enact teaching practices that best support all students in learning mathematics, elementary mathematics teacher education must prepare PSTs to navigate the many social, political, and institutional dynamics in today's classrooms. In this research, I theorized that successful negotiation of these dynamics requires that teachers have an understanding of themselves as mathematics teachers, including an examined vision of their goals of mathematics teaching, the social and political contexts of schooling, and the realities of their school contexts. In this study, I explored how PSTs understood themselves as mathematics teachers and teaching through participation in a seminar designed to support critical examination of themselves as mathematics teachers, particularly as within complex realities of schooling and attention to equity and access. The theoretical perspective of performativity (Butler, 1999) was used to understand and support PST identity work and specifically guided the design of the seminar and the case analysis. Each of the four cases offers a unique perspective on how PSTs understood themselves as mathematics teachers and mathematics teaching and how these understandings shifted. The first of three findings across the cases was that PSTs understood themselves and their teaching differently. Specifically, as articulated in the second finding, they understood teaching for equity differently and in relation to their own self-understandings. The third finding is that PSTs' understandings of themselves as mathematics teachers and mathematics teaching shifted. Thus, understanding PSTs' mathematics teacher identities through a theoretical premise of performativity and supporting PSTs in deconstructing these contexts, expectations, and constraints supported some PSTs in repositioning themselves in relation to dominant discourses that framed their understandings of mathematics teaching and in problematizing mathematics teaching. These findings have implications for mathematics teacher education, offering new tools and specific concrete resources to support mathematics teacher critical self-examination. Findings also suggest the need for PSTs to engage in continued identity work and in facilitated opportunities to work at the intersections of mathematics teaching with issues of race, class, and institutional discourses of testing. Further research on operationalizing a critical pedagogy in mathematics teacher education is also needed.Item Pre-service Teachers' Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching: A Comparison of Two University Mathematics Courses(2009) Lueke, H. Michael; Chazan, Daniel; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)One enduring problem in the field of mathematics education is preparing teachers to present mathematics in sufficiently deep and meaningful ways to their students. A focus of this preparation is developing in practitioners sufficient knowledge of mathematics for teaching. Mathematical knowledge for teaching has been theorized widely and is currently the focus of many empirical investigations in the field. This study positions itself within this literature and seeks to connect the research to undergraduate, pre-service elementary school teachers (PSTs), and the content courses which comprise the bulk of their mathematical preparation within a typical university teacher education program. Little is known about the impact that these courses have on teacher knowledge and still less has been studied about the efficacy of different pedagogical--or mathematical--approaches in these courses among PSTs. In order to test claims made in situated learning theory and respond to prevalent political rhetoric about mathematics teacher education, this project compared mathematics courses designed for PSTs in two different universities along three dimensions: (1) Differences in pedagogical and mathematical approaches to developing content knowledge for teaching in PSTs; (2) Resulting differences in PST performance on mathematical knowledge for teaching instruments (3) Resulting differences among PSTs' attitudes about mathematics, teaching, and their perception of the course's relevance to their anticipated work as elementary school teachers. Data from multiple data sources reveals that, though differences were small, PSTs' mathematical knowledge for teaching was substantively different between the two campuses. In addition, the data indicate that PSTs developed different attitudes about mathematics and teaching. Finally, PSTs' evaluated their course's relevance for teaching practice differently. This study suggests that when designing content courses for pre-service teachers, teacher educators should pay close attention to the interaction between mathematical approaches and pedagogical perspectives.