May Journal Summary

Teaching Children Mathematics. Promoting Equity Through Reasoning. By: Mary Mueller and Carolyn Maher

The beginning of this article talks about the gap between white students and minority students in the area of math. It said that 34% of white fourth graders scored at or above "proficient" while only 5% of black students and 10% of Hispanic students. Some factors for this that the article mentions is low expectations and classroom environment. An after school program was started that took 24 African Americans and Latinos and did math with them. The environment was set up for the students to have open ended questions, work collaboratively, and justify their answers. Students worked with exploring fractions using Cuisenaire rods. Teachers did not judge or evaluate the students responses so they felt much more apt to responding and trying to get their fellow peers to understand their reasoning. The students ended up coming up with proofs for their way of justification by default and were able to reason through their responses and others' responses. A lot of time teachers think the best way to deal with minority-race and inner-city students is to have a very procedural classroom. They do this because they think that these students need structure, which they do to a certain extent. However, we cannot limit their minds, we need to open opportunities up for them to explore different ideas. Some things that will help teachers to create an environment condusive to problem solving are: give choices, differentiate, made ideas public, select the best task and tools, and hold high expectations.

I found this article to be very interesting, because I had no idea that minority students were still lacking so far behind the white students in mathematics. I thought this article was very helpful in showing how as teachers we can still help these students be successful in math. It seems like it would be so great for these students to have open-ended discussions as long as they are taught how to stay on task. One point I was not exactly clear on with this article was if white students were given these open-ended opportunities while the minority students were not. I know that in my classroom I will allow the same opportunities for all my students in the classroom no matter where they come from. If I recognize a student may need some extra help I will try to provide that for them rather then just changing my expectations of the student. I think it would be really good to have this same type of environment the article created in my own classroom as well. While I know everyday cannot be like that, I would like to try and have at least one day a week where the students could explore different responses to questions and reason their way through their explanations. I think this really helps them to grow in mathematics and fully understand what is going on with topics.