An official website of the United States government
Abstract It is important to understand how students reason in K-12 integrated STEM settings to better prepare teachers to engage their students in integrated STEM tasks. To understand the reasoning that occurs in these settings, we used the lens of collective argumentation, specifically attending to the types of warrants elementary students and their teachers provided and accepted in integrated STEM contexts and how teachers supported students in providing these warrants. We watched 103 h of classroom instruction from 10 elementary school teachers and analyzed warrants that occurred in arguments in mathematics, coding, and integrated contexts to develop a typology of warrants contributed in mathematics and coding arguments. We found that these students made their warrants explicit the majority of the time, regardless of the teacher’s presence or absence. When teachers were present, they supported argumentation in various ways; however, they offered less support in integrated contexts. Additionally, we found students relied more on visual observations in coding contexts than in mathematics or integrated contexts, where they often provided warrants based on procedures required to accomplish a task. These findings have implications for improving integrated STEM instruction through engaging students in argumentation.
more »
« less
This content will become publicly available on February 17, 2026
Analyzing Children’s Spatial Reasoning Using an Existing Learning Progression: Insights from Interviews and Task Performance
Spatial reasoning comprises a set of skills used to mentally visualize, orient, and transform objects or spaces. These skills, which develop in humans through interaction with our physical world and direct instruction, are strongly associated with mathematics achievement but are often neglected in early grades mathematics teaching. To conceptualize ways to increase the representation of spatial reasoning skills in the classroom, we examined the outcomes of cognitive interviews with kin- dergarten through grade two students in which they engaged with one spatial reasoning task. Qualitative analyses of students’ work samples and verbal reasoning responses on a single shape de/composition task revealed evidence of a continuum of sophistication in their responses that supports a previously articulated hypothetical learning progression. Results suggest that teachers may be able to efficiently infer students’ skills in spatial reasoning using a single task and use the results to make instructional decisions that would support students’ mathematical development. The practical implications of this work indicate that additional classroom-based research could support the adoption of such practices that could help teachers efficiently teach spatial reasoning skills through mathematics instruction.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1721100
- PAR ID:
- 10575792
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Early Childhood Education Journal
- ISSN:
- 1082-3301
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Early mathematics, Spatial reasoning, Learning progressions, Cognitive interviews
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Measuring strike and dip is a common but complicated spatial task introduced to students in undergraduate geology courses. Students must employ multiple spatial reasoning skills in addition to geology-specific content knowledge. These spatial skills include disembedding - to recognize a suitable bedding or foliation plane to measure, spatial perception - to understand the plane’s relationship to horizontal and vertical, and aspects of spatial visualization, perspective taking, and mental rotation to determine how to position and read the compass tool. We tested a virtual reality (VR) training module to help teach the use of the compass tool to measure strike and dip. Students in a large introductory course in a public university were placed by lab section into either a “standard” classroom instruction or VR instruction for their initial training, then all completed a simplified mapping exercise in which they measured five planes set up around the classroom. Pre and post tests of spatial skills and scores on the measurement portion of the map assignment were collected and compared between the 2 types of training groups. Of 12 lab sections, half were assigned to VR and the other half to standard. The instructional assistants each taught at least one section of each type, and the instruction types were distributed evenly across the scheduled lab times. The VR group showed 11% higher improvement scores on the Water Level Task (WLT) compared to the standard group (p = 0.008, n=159). Because students in some lab sections had identical responses to the strike and dip task, we used a subset of four lab sections in which students submitted unique responses (n=41). We found no significant differences on the strike and dip task except with application of the right hand rule (RHR). The classroom instruction group performed 26% higher on the strike task when the RHR was taken into account (p = 0.006), but this difference does not persist when scoring is agnostic to the RHR. The VR module contains only a text explanation of the RHR. These results suggest that VR is at least as good as classroom instruction for building geology skills and, through targeted instruction, can significantly impact performance on a spatial test. Feedback on the VR activity will be used to further refine the module and develop best practice strategies for VR spatial training.more » « less
-
Incorporating modeling activities into classroom instruction requires flexibility with pedagogical content knowledge and the ability to understand and interpret students’ thinking, skills that teachers often develop through experience. One way to support preservice mathematics teachers’ (PSMTs) proficiency with mathematical modeling is by incorporating modeling tasks into mathematics pedagogy courses, allowing PSMTs to engage with mathematical modeling as students and as future teachers. Eight PSMTs participated in a model-eliciting activity (MEA) in which they were asked to develop a model that describes the strength of the magnetic field generated by a solenoid. By engaging in mathematical modeling as students, these PSMTs became aware of their own proficiency with and understanding of mathematical modeling. By engaging inmathematical modeling as future teachers, these PSMTs were able to articulate the importance of incorporating MEAs into their own instruction.more » « less
-
Lamberg, Teruni; Moss, Diana (Ed.)The process of proving, and more broadly conceived “reasoning and sense-making,” has received a great deal of attention in mathematics education research over the past three decades. Recently, scholars have argued for the importance of justification as a learning and teaching practice. As teachers work toward realizing goals for more equitable classroom environments, little is known about whether teachers’ conceptions about mathematical practices, such as justification, reflect an understanding of how students’ engagement in those practices can support more than just mathematical achievement. In this paper, we present findings from our analysis of interviews with 10 secondary mathematics teachers engaged in participatory action research to explore connections, and potential disconnections, between teachers’ conceptions of justification and their visions for equitable instruction.more » « less
-
Lamberg, Teruni; Moss, Diana (Ed.)While proving, and more broadly conceived “reasoning and sense-making,” have received a great deal of attention in mathematics education research over the past three decades, recently scholars have argued for the importance of justification as a learning and teaching practice. As teachers work toward realizing goals for more equitable classroom environments, little is known about whether teachers’ conceptions about mathematical practices, such as justification, reflect an understanding of how students’ engagement in those practices can support more than just mathematical achievement. In this paper, we present findings from our analysis of interviews with 10 secondary mathematics teachers engaged in participatory action research to explore connections, and potential disconnections, between teachers’ conceptions of justification and their visions for equitable instruction.more » « less
