Coordinating Students' and Teachers' Algebraic Reasoning (COSTAR)

University Of Georgia Research Foundation Inc, Athens GA

Investigators

Abstract

Research in education and psychology has demonstrated that adults and children often understand shared experiences in very different ways, but much less is known about how teachers and their students understand shared lessons, or how classroom learning occurs as teachers' and students' understandings interact over sequences of lessons. The research proposed here will focus on the interplay between teachers' and students' understandings of shared classroom interactions, and on ways that teachers and students work together to shape the teaching and learning of middle school algebra. The methodology used will be qualitative in nature - employing the video analysis of lessons. Data will be collected in three classrooms in Morgan County Georgia (a diverse racial and social setting), and the study will have a longitudinal focus where students will be followed over the course of their middle school algebra experiences.