What Can
Research On Pre-College Math Learning
Contribute to Undergraduate Mathematics Learning and Teaching?
Carolyn A. Maher, Rutgers
University
The presentation
will highlight some important findings
about student learning from an extensive longitudinal study and then
describe
what implications these findings might have for the design of
collegiate
mathematics classrooms. In this talk, I will first present videotaped
excerpts
of students learning mathematics. These excerpts will illustrate the
role that individual
sense making, as well as the surrounding social and cultural milieu,
played in
students' co-construction of mathematical arguments. Data will be drawn
from
domains relevant to college mathematics educators, including
combinatorics and
deductive argumentation. I will then present interview data from
students in
which they discuss what aspects of their environments made these types
of
reasoning and interactions possible. Finally, I will consider what
types of
environments in collegiate classrooms might promote similar modes of
reasoning
on the part of undergraduates.
Return to Conference on RUME home page.