Our Math Stories: Using Math Journals to Access Student Experience and Understanding
Presentation by: Elizabeth Greenwood
Session A | 9:20 – 9:40 | Room 203
Abstract:
As with any subject, students enter into mathematics with a collection of prior experiences and understandings. It is the job of the educator to respond to students’ experiences and understandings and to adjust programs to suit their needs. Math educators, including Stanford professor Jo Boaler, have suggested that an overwhelming number of people equate mathematics with negative experiences and believe that it is simply sets of rules and procedures. Continuing math education with such an outlook can be detrimental to students’ confidence and understanding in the math classroom. Journal writing can help educators combat negative feelings towards math in a number of ways. Regular journaling, both prompted and free written, gives students an opportunity to share how they feel and what they understand about mathematics. As students tell their “math stories”, educators are able to use them to inform instruction so that they may instruct in a way that is responsive to their students’ own narratives. It has also been suggested that the writing process itself – drafting, editing, and revising – can be used to expand understanding of mathematical concepts by requiring students to use metacognitive strategies to find gaps in logic and reasoning. This presentation will discuss the implications of journal writing in the elementary math classroom as both a formative and summative assessment tool. It will provide a variety of approaches to journal writing and practical suggestions of how to incorporate them into the math classroom.
