Costello, Eddie and Stafford, Patsy and Oldham, Elizabeth
(2018)
Facilitating the development of prospective primary school teachers’ understanding of the concept of ratio through discussion.
42nd ATEE Annual Conference 2017 Conference proceedings.
pp. 247-264.
ISSN 2593-6409
Abstract
Research on prospective primary school teachers’ (PPSTs’) understanding of the
concept of ratio and its application to everyday life has shown that this can be
problematic for many student teachers. As the concept is important in the
development of proportional reasoning, which underpins many areas of primary
school mathematics, questions arise about the PPSTs’ ability to facilitate its
development for the children they teach. The “ATEE Ratio Project,” started in 2011,
has contributed to the research, chiefly using an instrument designed to elicit from
individual respondents the meanings that they ascribed to ratio, the uses (both their
own and other people’s) of ratio that they identified, and the ways in which they
represented the concept in particular by symbols and drawings – all measures of
understanding. For the present study, the research instrument was utilised differently:
as a stimulus to discussion (in “Think, Pair, Share” mode), with the aim of
investigating if participants’ understanding could be enhanced by this exercise. The
work was undertaken in a Mathematics Education module with Professional Masters
in Education students in one institution in Ireland, and focused in particular on usage
in everyday life. This paper reports on the study, presenting and discussing the
findings with reference to the previous Irish and international work. Initial findings
suggest that embedding the concept in everyday life contexts helps facilitate PPSTs’
understanding and application of ratio, and should therefore help in supporting the
development of their own students’ understanding of the concept.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Additional Information: |
The 42nd ATEE Annual Conference 2017 was held from 23 to 25 October 2017 in Dubrovnik, Croatia |
| Keywords: |
Ratio; applications; primary teacher education; relational understanding;
“Think, Pair, Share”; discussion; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education |
| Item ID: |
11816 |
| Depositing User: |
Eddie Costello
|
| Date Deposited: |
26 Nov 2019 15:44 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
42nd ATEE Annual Conference 2017 Conference proceedings |
| Publisher: |
Association for Teacher Education in Europe (ATEE), Brussels, Belgium |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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