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Promoting Early Elementary Mathematical Thinking With Interactive Technology: A Collaborative Investigation

Sat, April 9, 4:05 to 5:35pm, Convention Center, Floor: Level One, Room 102 B

Abstract

Objectives
Educators in Auburn, Maine, with researchers at Education Development Center (EDC) and local Maine universities are collaborating to learn how iPad tablets can promote stronger mathematics learning and teaching in early grades with high-needs student populations. Partners are studying a promising teacher-identified strategy: the regular use of iPads by K-2 students to record and review their explanations while solving mathematics problems. This poster describes how classrooms implemented this strategy, potential impacts on student learning, and implications for educational equity.

Theoretical Framework
Interactive technologies can potentially promote equitable mathematics learning for all students. For example, iPad apps that allow students to record and review audio and visual explanations of their mathematical thinking may support the kinds of mathematical reasoning and discourse that have been recommended in the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice (2010) and are linked to deeper conceptual understandings (Attard, 2013; Moschkovich, 2012). When students have access to one-to-one iPads as in Auburn, recording technology can give voice and value to all students and their mathematical ideas, providing more equal opportunities to attain and demonstrate higher mathematical achievement (Battey, 2013; Boaler & Staples, 2008; Flores, 2007; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2014). The project asks: In what ways can this recording strategy be implemented to promote stronger and more equitable mathematical learning in early grades?

Methods
Partners employed iterative design cycles (Penuel, Fishman, Haugan Cheng, & Sabelli, 2011) over one year to study the Auburn iPad recording strategy. Data sources included surveys and interviews with teachers and administrators; educators’ written reflections; video-recorded classroom observations; and students’ recorded artifacts. Qualitative coding techniques (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) and tables and matrices (Miles & Huberman, 1994) were used to categorize and compare teachers’ approaches toward strategy implementation, student responses, and changes over time. Student recordings and classroom observation data were examined against rubrics adapted from Hull, Balka, and Harbin Miles (2011) to explore students’ mathematical thinking and the degree to which teachers provide students with opportunities to develop mathematical communication and understandings.

Results
Preliminary analyses suggest that when mobile technologies are used to support mathematical communication and representation, students enhance their understanding of critical mathematics content and practices. When students use these tools to make their math thinking visible, they establish their voices in the classroom community and teachers have increased opportunities to formatively assess, adjust instruction, and include all students in this community.

Significance
“Equity, in part, means that each student is treated as an individual, and listening, really listening, is one of the best ways to encourage such treatment” (Hiebert et. al. 1997). This project shows evidence of how interactive technology may support equity in mathematics learning by empowering students’ voices. The classrooms in this project have high percentages of students living in poverty, but mathematical learning gains are already emerging. As an Auburn teacher shared: “I watched children from other schools explain their thinking and assumed they were just ‘smarter’ than the kids I work with. Now my students are those ‘smart’ kids because they can explain and show their thinking.”

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