Privileging Bilingual Children's Funds of Knowledge in Preservice Teachers' Development of Mathematics Lessons

• In Event: Funds of Knowledge at the Center: A Co-Teaching Model for Arts Integration and Language Diversity

Abstract

1. Objectives
This presentation describes the initial tensions that emerged as a result of a shift of priorities in a mathematics education methods course. Through work and reflections of the PSTs, this presentation shares the creative and community-based approaches that PSTs developed as a result of this curricular shift.

2. Theoretical Framework
The motivation towards this shift is founded on the acknowledgement of children’s linguistic, intellectual, cultural, and social resources nurtured through their experiences in and within their homes and communities. A careful ethnographic analysis of the transmission of these resources at home and their application into school instruction will support a convincing demonstration of children's knowledge in their academic performance (Moll, 1992). Moreover, besides considering children’s funds of knowledge, in mathematics education it is important to include open-ended problem-solving tasks since these offer students multiple ways of engaging in mathematics, as well as to make sense of these tasks by engaging in mathematical activity (Lesh, Hoover, Hole, Kelly, & Post, 2000; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2000; Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, 2010). To integrate these two perspectives, mathematization processes were applied (Gravemeijer, 1997) in the development of culturally relevant mathematical tasks that might promote the emergence of a “zone of mathematical practice” (González, Andrade, Civil, & Moll, 2001).

3. Methods & Data Sources
Content analysis process is a “technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages” (Holsti, 1969, p. 14). To explore the processes of integrating children’s funds of knowledge with school mathematics, as well as what how PSTs understood these processes as part of their mathematics teaching practices with bilingual and bicultural students, we applied content analysis to qualitatively examine the first-semester PSTs’ work, and journal reflections taken during course classes and fieldwork experiences as well as the instructors’ notes.

4. Results
Three themes permeated PSTs’ transformative knowledge, caring, and actions in mathematics education: (a) students come first, when designing mathematical tasks and engaging in problem solving, students’ evolving ideas, knowledge, and/or errors are foundational to supporting learning; (b) mathematics is everywhere, while it is important that students learn about school mathematics, mathematics applications are present everywhere, so students can learn from and apply mathematics in and outside of the classroom; and (c) mathematics is inclusive, while mathematics is taught as an isolated subject, in real-life projects and applications, mathematics is linked to other subjects, so subject integration presents a great potential. Further, this inclusivity also refers to student personal identities and knowledges, those of the students, so they also see themselves as doers and users of mathematics.

5. Scholarly Significance
Moll (1992) and colleagues argue that the ultimate goal of these innovations “depends on when and how teachers become part of the decision to initiate change” (p. 229). This study describes an evolving commitment of PSTs towards educational changes that place students’ knowledge at the center of mathematical instruction.

Author

• Carlos Alfonso LopezLeiva, University of New Mexico