Keith Leatham and Blake Peterson recently had a paper titled “Establishing student mathematical thinking as an object of class discussion” published in the conference proceedings for the Psychology of Mathematics Education – North America (PMENA) conference. Keith has answered a few questions about this paper below:
Who were your co-authors on this paper?
Laura R. Van Zoest (Western Michigan University), Ben Freeburn (Western Michigan University), Blake E. Peterson (BYU), and Shari L. Stockero (Michigan Tech University)
Who would you say is the target audience for this paper?
Mathematics Education Researchers
What are some of the main ideas you hope your audience will take from the article?
A deeper understanding of the complexity and subtlety of establishing student mathematical thinking as an object of class discussion.
What else would you like to say about this paper?
One thing I have learned from this work that relates to my own teaching is how critical it is help students to know exactly what the object is they are trying to make sense. It is hard to make sense of something if you don’t know what that something is.
Abstract:
Productive use of student mathematical thinking is a critical yet incompletely understood dimension of effective teaching practice. We have previously conceptualized the teaching practice of building on student mathematical thinking and the four elements that comprise it. In this paper we begin to unpack this complex practice by looking closely at its first element, establish. Based on an analysis of secondary mathematics teachers’ enactments of building, we describe two critical aspects of establish—establish precision and establish an object—and the actions teachers take in association with these aspects.