Discourse

In the past 20 years, mathematics education research has seen a turn toward the social and, consequently, discursive aspects of learning (Kieran, Forman, & Sfard, 2001; Ryve, 2011). A heightened attention to discursive features of instruction is seen in the recent publication Principles to Actions (NCTM, 2014), which describes an ambitious image of mathematics teaching and learning for the 21st century.

Quality elementary science programs are faced with the challenge of adapting and/or building upon the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in order to provide an essential foundation for student learning and interest in science. As such, these science programs must address how the practices of science can be linked with cross-cutting concepts through meaningful learning contexts that, of necessity, evolve progressively across grades.

The goal of this session is to discuss possibilities, progress, and problems in using learning progression research to support improved assessment and instruction in middle school and high school classrooms.

In this session, several learning progression-related DR K–12 projects share findings and discuss questions around two issues:

The main goal of this session is to share and get feedback on materials from a 40-hour professional development program for elementary mathematics, focusing in particular on the organization of facilitation supports included in these materials. The PD was designed to help teachers promote discourse in elementary mathematics classrooms. In particular, it defines and helps teachers implement “responsive” discourse in the classroom, that is, discourse in which all students are responsible for learning and engaged in probing each other’s mathematical ideas.

The three panelists in this session are in the last one or two years of their game-based learning projects, and all have done extensive work in supporting use of their games in classroom learning. As their work has progressed, each has discovered valuable ways to support teachers as well as encountered surprises in what teachers wanted (and didn’t want), and now recognize things they wished they had learned in the beginning of their projects. Session participants leave with recommendations they can use in their current projects, including:

How can tools for teachers foster high-leverage classroom discourse and assessment practices?