Ethnomathematics

Through research on topics pertaining to the running of effective and productive mathematics classrooms, I found there to be three main foundations of them. One is a foundation based on motivation within the classroom and how the students react to it. Another one is the role of the teacher as a reflective facilitator rather than a fact-giver. Finally, I found that using an ethno mathematical approach reaches out to more students. In order to produce a structured, yet “free”, classroom the teacher has to be reflective in their practices using motivation and cultural themes.

Motivation in a classroom comes from external and internal systems. All children start school with an eagerness to learn and an internal “want” to know the how’s and why’s of everything. This eagerness is an example of intrinsic motivation. Along the way, they do not lose that eagerness but rather it gets discouraged by attitudes of their teachers. In order to keep fostering that intrinsic motivation, teachers need to realize that students want to take pride in their own work. (Bowman) “…students want to take pride in both their individual accomplishments an din the achievements of their classmatesвЂ¦Ð²Ð‚Ñœ (p2, Bowman) Students who do not lose that motivation will seek what is rewarding rather than what is to be rewarded. Using intrinsic rewards will invite students to develop deeper awareness of their work and how it ties into the larger picture of school. The external type of motivation often, if not presented right, will yield a negative outcome on the student’s motivation. The students may come to depend on getting something for everything they do. They may also figure out what the bare minimum is to be rewarded and not learn to push beyond the level of the bar. “Those rewards, however, can ultimately limit the students’ ability to unleash their aspirations and excel at what is meaningful to them individually or collectively.” (p2, Bowman) Often times by the time a student has hit high school, they have been brainwashed into thinking that everything they do must be rewarded with something. I have seen this all too often in my own personal classroom. A student gets a question right or a good grade and they expect some kind of favor in return. They have lost that intrinsic motivation of wanting to achieve a personal goal within the realm of learning. This is not entirely the teachers fault.

Most teachers teach the way that they were taught in school growing up. This is a problem, as the mind-set of children continues to evolve. In order to keep up with the changing methods of teaching and reaching students, teachers must sit through days of in-service workshops. “Teachers approach professional development and in-service opportunities as if they’re approaching a train wreck.” (p58, Tieso) A study was done at an elementary school by Carol Tieso. She was able to select two school-level teachers as lead teachers and separate grade-level teachers to work with on actually putting professional development to use in the classrooms. Her main focus was on using peer coaching and differentiation strategies of tiering. The idea of tiering wasn’t successful at first within some classrooms, but after being convinced to try again by peer coaches, Teacher R did find some success in the retention and attention rate of his students. Teacher J also found curriculum compacting to be successful throughout the school. “…she saw pre-testing and curriculum compacting being used successfully on a regular basis.” (p61, Tieso) Some of the veteran teachers were resistant at first to try new methods of teaching, but ultimately found that a little change went a long way in the eyes and learning of their students. At the end of Carol’s study, she talked with the principal and noted “she was amazed at the progress of some of the teachers who had spent the majority of their careers using whole-group instruction and were now overheard telling parents about their use of flexible grouping and tiered lessons.” (p62, Tieso) In conclusion, Tieso found that teachers indicated that classrooms were more student-focused rather than teacher-driven to learn the material necessary. She stated that “technical or peer coaching is a professional development model that can successfully and systematically bring change to a school environment.” (p62, Tieso)

Along with having peers to bounce ideas off of, teachers need to be reflective practitioners. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) formed a commission in early 1989 to research and set new standards for teaching mathematics. These standards are based on two assumptions going into the mathematics education: 1. teachers are key figures in changing the ways of how mathematics is taught, and 2. these changes require that teachers have a source of long-term support and resources. (p2, Phillip) This commission began their research in 1991 to identify characteristics of teachers that placed them as leaders among their peers. This was done by completing extensive interviews with the teachers, assessing their content knowledge, and observing them through a series of seminars and classes. The teachers that were selected were ones that regularly attended workshops to broaden their educational views and their ability to adapt that material to their own and others classrooms.

In getting the teachers views on five categories of conception, the researchers used an indirect method of questioning during the interviews with each teacher. The first category they were looking for insight on was: what mathematics means. They came to find that “rules were not the focus of the mathematics taught by these teachers; they were adamant that school mathematics should not focus on the learning of algorithmic skills” (p2, Phillip) They lead their classes by student exploration and discovery of how and why things work in mathematics. Problem solving was a major interest point in each teacher’s classroom.

A second category that the researchers looked at was: what it means to learn mathematics. These teachers felt that students learned mathematics by being immersed into the topic, rather than it being pushed on them directly from the text. These teachers used newspapers or happenings around their school as a source of lessons for each topic. Mathematics isn’t just in a classroom; the students need to feel a connection between what they are learning and how it directly affects their lives in order to make the topic “real.”