Document Type

Report

Disciplines

Curriculum and Instruction | Educational Methods | Junior High, Intermediate, Middle School Education and Teaching | Other Teacher Education and Professional Development | Science and Mathematics Education | Teacher Education and Professional Development

Abstract

Justification is an important disciplinary and learning practice. Despite a growing knowledge base regarding how teachers orchestrate mathematical discussions, few analyses have considered the orchestration of specific disciplinary practices such as justification. Using classroom video data from the JAGUAR project, we analyze two instantiations of extensive student justification in seventh-grade classrooms and document each teacher’s pedagogical approach that supported students’ engagement in this practice. We argue that, although there was overlap in their pedagogical repertoires, the teachers created a context for student justification in two unique ways. We document the similarities and differences in their approaches, including the nature of teachers’ responses to student ideas, nature of the teachers’ press prompts (for reasoning and justification), nature of the classroom culture, and priorities in task design and task implementation. Implications are discussed.

Comments

Paper presented at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Philadelphia, PA, as part of the Learning Science SIG symposium Productive Talk and Participation in Disciplinary Practices: Perspectives from Mathematics and Science Education, April 6, 2014

Please do not cite or reproduce without the author’s permission

This Justification and Argumentation: Growing Understanding of Algebraic Reasoning (JAGUAR) project was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DRL 0814829). Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of funding agency.

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