TY - JOUR
T1 - When Constant in a Proportional Relationship Isn’t Constant—A Sign of Not-So-Shared Understandings
AU - Brown, Rachael Eriksen
AU - Epstein, Martha L.
AU - Orrill, Chandra Hawley
N1 - Funding Information:
The work reported here was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant DRL-1621290. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Research Council on Mathematics Learning.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/7/2
Y1 - 2020/7/2
N2 - Teacher knowledge, especially of proportional reasoning, is important, particularly in middle school grades in the United States. In this instrumental case study, one teacher’s understanding of constant as it relates to proportions and how that understanding shifted over the course of a six hour professional development experience is discussed. The professional development focused on three important components of proportional reasoning: quantity, covariation, and constant. The teacher had access to knowledge about some, but not all, characteristics of proportional relationships. She understood that both quantities need to covary but did not constrain this relationship to multiplication. She paid persistent attention to a relationship other than the constant relationship between quantities. The knowledge that was public to the facilitator during the professional development did not reveal the persistent attention Dora paid to a relationship other than the constant relationship between quantities. The results highlight the complicated task of making sense of teachers’ reasoning and suggests three key considerations for teacher education.
AB - Teacher knowledge, especially of proportional reasoning, is important, particularly in middle school grades in the United States. In this instrumental case study, one teacher’s understanding of constant as it relates to proportions and how that understanding shifted over the course of a six hour professional development experience is discussed. The professional development focused on three important components of proportional reasoning: quantity, covariation, and constant. The teacher had access to knowledge about some, but not all, characteristics of proportional relationships. She understood that both quantities need to covary but did not constrain this relationship to multiplication. She paid persistent attention to a relationship other than the constant relationship between quantities. The knowledge that was public to the facilitator during the professional development did not reveal the persistent attention Dora paid to a relationship other than the constant relationship between quantities. The results highlight the complicated task of making sense of teachers’ reasoning and suggests three key considerations for teacher education.
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U2 - 10.1080/19477503.2020.1772035
DO - 10.1080/19477503.2020.1772035
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85086936672
VL - 12
SP - 194
EP - 207
JO - Investigations in Mathematics Learning
JF - Investigations in Mathematics Learning
SN - 1947-7503
IS - 3
ER -