Math+Research

Writing in Math Research In //Writing in Mathematics: An Alternative Form of Communication for Academically Low-Achieving Students// a study by Baxter, Woodward, and Olson, a seventh grade, “low” math class was studied; specifically four low achieving students for an entire school year. The researchers looked at what writing can make bring to light about low performing students’ math proficiency. These researchers ascribe to the guidelines set forth by National Research Council (2001) as far as what defines math proficiency. More specifically, the researchers were looking at students’ conceptual understanding, competence of strategies, and adaptive reasoning.

The math teacher in this study created writing activities that coincided with the topics being covered in class, increased students’ metacognitive awareness, and helped to foster an “ownership” of students’ math knowledge. Further, the teacher felt that her students needed to be engaged in the writing process in math, so she incorporated ideas from the National Writing Project. She made open-ended questions that allowed for her students’ opinions about topics being taught, mathematical thinking, and explanations of how to perform math tasks could be expressed in written form.

The researchers found that the math journals served as an alternative strategy for communicating their mathematical thinking. Students were able to put their mathematical thinking into words as well as the opportunity to communicate through drawings and symbols to explain their thought processes. Further, for the two girls in the study, the journals also provided an additional connection to their teacher. The teacher felt that the students’ journals presented her with much more information that informed her classroom instruction than she had originally thought they would. Overall the researchers found the math journals to be an important tool and believe that writing is a highly valuable way for lower achieving students to communicate about their thinking.

In // Writing, Thinking, and Math// by Mayotte and Moore, the authors believe that giving children opportunities for writing will help with their literal, interpretive, and analytical reasoning. Students will be able to think more creatively and critically which in turn increases their metacognitive awareness. The end result of this heightened awareness will be students who are problem-solvers for life. The authors of this article believe that there are many areas of math that easily lend themselves to writing. They provide four different writing activities students can engage in that will increase math understanding, improve problem solving skills, and most of all create a more positive attitude towards math.

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