Teachers' Identification of the Appropriateness of Proportional Reasoning

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: Understanding Math Teaching and Learning From Multiple Perspectives

Abstract

We considered the extent to which middle school teachers identified whether a situation is proportional and whether the underlying mathematical structures of the situation impacted teachers’ abilities to discern proportional situations. We then investigated relationships between teachers’ backgrounds and their ability to identify proportional situations. We analyzed data from two datasets. The first was a national sample of 148 middle grades teachers who completed the Proportional Reasoning form from the Learning Mathematics for Teaching Project. The other is a convenience sample of 32 middle school teachers participating in a study about proportional reasoning. We found that teachers are better at identifying items that are proportional than those that are not. We also found that the mathematical structures matter.

Authors

• Chandra H. Orrill, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth

• Travis Weiland, Appalachian State University

• Rachael Eriksen Brown, Penn State Abington

• Gal Gili Nagar, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth