Page 149 - Children’s mathematical development and learning needs in perspective of teachers’ use of dynamic math interviews

Dynamic math interviews to identify children’s math learning needs
The ability of teachers to conduct dynamic math interviews
Dynamic math interviewing requires specific competencies, such as the ability to explore and expand the limits of child’s knowledge and to interpret child’s thinking (Ginsburg, 2009). The teacher must be able to stimulate child’s responding and thereby gain a better understanding of a child’s perspective (Empson & Jacobs, 2008; Lee & Johnston-Wilder, 2013). The interaction with children may often have a solution-focused character. Teachers then pose questions to help children identify their learning strengths and weaknesses but also questions aimed at stimulating children to share their mathematics learning experiences and emotions and specify their goals and the support needed to achieve these goals (Bannink, 2010). In order to become competent math interviewers, teachers must practice with the observation, posing appropriate questions, and adequate responding. Video recording of dynamic math interviews, training, reflection, and ongoing review purposes is critical (Wright et al., 2006).
In order to meet the educational needs of each and every child, teachers must recognize the diversity of learning trajectories and have the capacity to provide scaffolded support along the way (Deunk et al., 2018; Empson & Jacobs, 2008). Van de Grift (2007) identified the provision of a safe but stimulating learning climate, efficient classroom management, and clear instruction as necessary for effective teaching. Aspects of teaching such as showing children how to simplify complex problems have also been identified as critical aspects of effective mathematics teaching (Van der Lans et al., 2018). Teachers must have the required knowledge base but also knowledge of alternatives for stimulating children’s mathematics learning (see Hill et al., 2008). Only then can teachers decide which alternative is most suited for a given child, in a given domain of learning, and a given problem at a given point in time. Thus, when teachers are better able to identify the math learning needs of children showing low mathematics achievement, they should be able to better establish meaningful instructional goals and make the necessary adaptations to their mathematics education (Hoth et al., 2016).
To support low math achievers, several studies have shown the following teaching strategies to be successful: highly structured and
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