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Title: Elementary teachers’ beliefs about teaching mathematics and science: Implications for Argumentation
Teachers in the elementary grades often teach all subjects and are expected to have appropriate content knowledge of a wide range of disciplines. Current recommendations suggest teachers should integrate multiple disciplines into the same lesson, for instance, when teaching integrated STEM lessons. Although there are many similarities between STEM fields, there are also epistemological differences to be understood by students and teachers. This study investigated teachers’ beliefs about teaching mathematics and science using argumentation and the epistemological and contextual factors that may have influenced these beliefs. Teachers’ beliefs about different epistemological underpinnings of mathematics and science, along with contextual constraints, led to different beliefs and intentions for practice with respect to argumentation in these disciplines. The contextual constraint of testing and the amount of curriculum the teachers perceived as essential focused more attention on the teaching of mathematics, which could be seen as benefiting student learning of mathematics. On the other hand, the perception of science as involving wonder, curiosity, and inherently positive and interesting ideas may lead to the creation of a more positive learning environment for the teaching of science. These questions remain open and need to be studied further: What are the consequences of perceiving argumentation in mathematics as limited to concepts already well-understood? Can integrating the teaching of mathematics and science lead to more exploratory and inquiry-based teaching of mathematical ideas alongside scientific ones?  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1741910
PAR ID:
10472078
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Editor(s):
Sacristán, A.I.; Cortés-Zavala, J.C.; Ruiz-Arias, P.M.
Publisher / Repository:
PMENA
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Proceedings of the 42nd Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education
ISBN:
9781734805703
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1951 to 1952
Format(s):
Medium: X
Location:
Mexico.
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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