Organizing for Collective Agency in Mathematical Problem-Posing

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: Improving Mathematics Teaching Learning: Focus on Problem-Posing and Problem-Based Learning

Abstract

In this study, I trouble the ease with which the literature talks about student agency in mathematical problem-posing and examine what is socially and emotionally at stake for students to do this work. I investigate the interactions of a purposefully selected group of students in a low-track 8th-grade mathematics classroom in a predominantly working-class Latinx community. I find that active listening and seeing one’s actions as a part of greater whole enabled students to negotiate the interplay of agency and risks in a way that allowed them to productively engage in crafting a meaningful math problem. Using the findings, I conceptualize collective agency and discuss why collective agency is a more ethical goal for problem-posing based learning environments.

Author

• Priyanka Agarwal, University of Wisconsin - Madison