Readings for our February 4 class: Problem-solving, problem-posing and word problems!

Here are our three readings for next week:

1) Alan Schoenfeld (1996, FLM). In Fostering Communities of Inquiry, Must It Matter That the Teacher Knows "The Answer"?

2) Stephen Brown & Marion Walter on problem posing

3) Susan Gerofsky (1996, FLM): A linguistic and narrative view of word problems

SNACKS!!

1. Susan
2. Vanessa and David G.
3. Philipa and Keri
4. Jubilee and Alex
5. Conrad and Murugan
6. Dave H. and...
7. NO FOOD
8. Sophie
9. Alain
10. NO FOOD HERE EITHER
11. Kevin and Shan
12. Total Potluck
13. Total Potluck

Bingjie Wang's MA thesis (2012): Mathematics education journals

Here is a link to Bingjie's very interesting thesis!

It is also available here, at Circle UBC: <https://circle.ubc.ca/bitstream/handle/2429/38622/ubc_2012_spring_wang_bingjie.pdf?sequence=1>

Readings for our Jan. 21 class with guest speaker Beth Herbel-Eisenmann, Michigan State University

Focus for your blog post:
•What questions would/ will you ask the author about the article?
• Identify two or three "stops" in the article, and why they make you stop.

1) "Muddying the clear waters": Teachers' take-up of the linguistic idea of revoicing

2) Strong is the silence: Challenging interlocking systems of privilege and oppression in mathematics teacher education

3) From intended curriculum to written curriculum: 
Examining the "voice" of a mathematics textbook

Readings for our Jan. 28 class: The Psychology of Mathematics Education

Here are our three readings for next week's class, on a view of mathematics education in relationship to psychology:

1) Fischbein (1999). Psychology and mathematics education.

2) Sfard (1991). On the dual nature of mathematical conceptions.

3) Tahta (1993) Review and commentary on Victoire Sur Les Maths

*Note the change to (3) -- I decided to wait till a little later for us to look at Pimm's work.

Wed. Jan. 7 class readings for next class: Is mathematics education a 'field'?

1) Higginson: On the foundations of math education

2) Wheeler, Nesher, Bell, Gattegno: Research program for math education (1)



3) Kilpatrick: Reasonable ineffectiveness of research in math education

Writing responses to articles -- talking back to text

As you read academic books and articles, view videos, films and works of art, hear lectures, etc., it is helpful to engage with these 'texts' in a real or imagined conversation. Thinking and engaging critically doesn't necessarily mean being negative about what you're reading! It just means that you
ask questions, connect your reading to your own knowledge and experiences, think about what is not included or what could have been as well as what is included in the piece, etc.

Some good starting prompts for engaging in a critical dialogue with a text:

• I was surprised by...
• I was excited to read that ....
• I was annoyed to read ...
• I wholeheartedly agreed/ disagreed with the author on this point.... because....
• I wondered why ...
• I would illustrate this piece as follows ... (with a story, a diagram, a drawing, a comic strip, a graph, etc.)
• I could predict .... but not ... in this piece
• If I could talk to the author, I would ask them...
• This relates to my own life/ knowledge/ experiences in this way...
• Something that was not included in this piece was ...
• This piece reminded me of (something else I've seen/ heard/ experienced), in this way...
• If you extended this idea to the limit, it would result in ...
• This fits into the author's other work in this way...
• I see the following influences in this piece: ...
• The author interprets .... in the same (or a very different) way than I would: ...

"The Stop": Giving attention to things that stop you in your tracks as you read

David Appelbaum, The Stop (1995)


A "stop" is something that stops you (in your reading, in your observations, in your teaching/ learning). The metaphor is suddenly coming across a big rock in your path that stops you from smooth and continuous (and unconscious) walking. It must be attended to. It is a moment that allows for an opening to new paths, new ideas, new approaches if  you are able to give it the attention it demands.

A stop in your reading might be something you didn't expect -- something confusing, or difficult, or exceptionally beautiful, or something you strongly agree or disagree with, or an unknown word or phrase. A stop touches you deeply in some way (by irritating, or moving, or perplexing you, for example).

The stops allow for a change of heart, a change of mind, a political and/or intellectual engagement, a reconsideration of strategy, or even a reconsideration of world view.

From Lynn Fels, "Coming into presence: The unfolding of a moment" (Journal of Educational

Controversy):



"A stop is a calling to attention; a coming to the crossroads, in which a choice of action or direction must be taken, oft-times blindly, as experienced by Appelbaum’s (1995) blind man as he tap-taps the obstacles he encounters with his white cane—there are as yet unknown consequences of the subsequent action or decision as yet to be taken and embodied.


Between closing and beginning lives a gap, a caesura, a discontinuity.

The betweenness is a hinge that belongs to neither one nor the other.
It is neither poised nor unpoised, yet moves both ways . . .
It is the stop. (Applebaum, 1995, pp. 15-16)


A stop is a moment that tugs on our sleeve, a moment that arrests our habits of engagement, a moment within which horizons shift, and we experience our situation anew. A stop occurs when we come to see or experience things, events, or relationships from a different perspective or understanding; a stop is a moment that calls us to mindful awareness of Arendt’s appeal for renewal through action in the gap between past and future.


How we choose to respond and how that choice of action or non-action impacts on our lives and on the lives of those around us speaks to the risk, the opportunity, to the possibility of action. As media philosophers Taylor and Saarinen (1994) remind us, in spaces as familiar as the London tube, or as unmapped as cyberspace, we must “mind the gap” (p. 5). Applebaum’s moments of stop are moments that call our attention to the gap; moments that interrupt, that provoke new questioning, that evoke response, reflection, and hopefully, lead to meaningful and moral action."

Welcome to EDCP 550: Math education -- Origins and issues

I'm looking forward to meeting you, exploring the foundations and issues of our field together, and having lots of good discussions. I will post our draft course outline (and then the revised draft) here for future reference.

Here's to a great term and an interesting course together!