Questioning Techniques to Help Move Third Grade Students’ Mathematical Thinking While Engaged in Learning Fraction Concepts in a Chinese Immersion Classroom Environment

Term

Summer 7-27-2016

Capstone

Thesis

Degree Name

MAT

Primary Advisor/Dissertation Chair

James Brickwedde

Secondary Advisor/Reader One

Yan Li

Peer-Reviewer/Reader Two

James Laux

Abstract

This capstone was an action research self-study that documented the math-talk conversation among third grade students when the teacher applied Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) methods to teach a two week fraction unit. The author analyzed his data using two frameworks; that of Hufferd-Ackles et al. (2004) and Jacobs and Ambrose (2008), to shape the analysis and draw conclusions. The analysis describes the origin of who asked questions, the progression of change over the course of the unit, and how well the teacher used supporting, clarifying, and extending questions in response to students’ mathematical thinking. The challenge is to build up the readiness for students to share their mathematical thinking by different types of questioning strategies and different levels of questioning skills. The capacity to express ones thinking in the immersion language of instruction, in this instance Chinese, also had an impact on students’ capacity to express their thinking and ask questions of each other. Further study is needed to continue identifying and assessing how the students-teacher interactions develop in a longer observation period within a language immersion setting.

Research Methodology

Action Research

Keywords

Foreign Language, Mathematics, Reflective Practice, Teachers/ Teaching

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