Preservice Teachers Bridging School and Community Mathematics: Teaching to Reach Beyond One's Funds of Knowledge

• In Event: Community Mathematics Explorations 2.0: Expanding on the Work of TEACH Math

Abstract

CME projects provide opportunities to ‘uncover’ the mathematics embedded in daily community practices. This bridging aims to mobilize children’s community funds of knowledge (FOK) to learn school mathematics (Civil, 2002; González et al., 2001; Moll & Greenberg, 1990; Moll, 1992) in meaningful and relational ways (Authors, 2014). With this goal, in my work with PT I have implemented approaches to similar to those developed by TEACH Math (Turner, Drake, Roth-McDuffie, Aguirre, Bartell & Foote, 2012), specifically the CME module. Through reflection on and analyses of my work and the PTs’, I have learned that to build these bridges both students’ and their community FOK and practices are just as relevant as the PTs’ FOK.

For example, previous studies have described PTs’ ability to develop these bridges. Drake and Norton-Meier (2007) report that PT linked family and community FOK with school-based content (mathematics and literacy) by running evening family events to learn about children’s parents, and then develop and implement lesson plans. Links between mathematics and literacy were evident, but not as much between FOK and academic content. Authors (2012b) describe the development of these links but also focusing on mathematics for social justice. Results showed that PT paid more attention to issues associated with children's mathematical thinking and their academic language by integrating cultural FOK, including issues related to mathematics for social justice. Finally, Aguirre et al. (2013) describe how through community visits, PT developed problem solving mathematics lessons by linking (i.e., emergent, transitional, and meaningful connections) mathematical concepts to the community settings, children’s mathematical thinking, and FOK. The present study extends on these works by focusing on the analysis of the level of cognitive demand of the mathematical tasks developed by PTs’, as well as on PTs’ reported FOK used to establish the links between school mathematics and the community mathematics and children’s FOK.

The work in the mathematics methods course is integrated in a larger project, the Teacher Education Collaborative in Language Diversity and Arts Integration (TECLA) project. Through a 3-semester period, PT learn how to apply an arts-integration-CRP-multiliteracy approach in their teaching. To explore PTs’ FOK and their integration of children’s FOK with mathematical tasks, I applied a content analysis to qualitatively examine the first-semester PTs’ work in the math methods course, such as module reflections, self-portrait autobiographies (SPA), the community-based lesson (CBL) project, reflection journal, and the instructor’s notes. In CBL project, PTs observed, and interviewed with a student to develop a relationship and learn about their FOK and accordingly developed and implemented math lessons. PTs’ reflections and SPA yielded themes about how PT used their own FOK to link their students’ FOK with mathematics: a) shared experiences, b) familiar and c) foreign practices. Greater intersecting of experiences helped PT focus more on the task level of the cognitive demand. Relevance of CME experiences and suggestions to develop ethnographic, Extended Related Activities (Author, 2014b) to support PTs’ understanding of unfamiliar practices will be shared.

Author

• Carlos Alfonso LopezLeiva, University of New Mexico