Page 150 - Children’s mathematical development and learning needs in perspective of teachers’ use of dynamic math interviews

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Chapter 5
organised programmes; the giving of hints for problem solution; explicit modelling; use of visual representations and manipulatives; careful selection and sequencing of instructional examples; and having children verbalise their strategies but also those modelled by the teacher (e.g., Gersten et al., 2009).
The present study
Whether or not the dynamic math interview is an effective tool for identifying the math learning needs of children showing low mathematics achievement has yet to be demonstrated. We therefore posed the following two questions. 1) What is the adequacy of teachers’ use of a dynamic math interview to identify the math learning needs of children with low mathematics achievement?; 2) To what extent does the use of a dynamic math interview promote the mathematics learning of children with initially low mathematics achievement?
Critical elements for the determination of the reliability, validity, and benefits of using a dynamic math interview were identified and thus elements for the development of an analytic framework.
In order to help the teachers with the conduct of the dynamic math interviews, a scripted protocol was developed on the basis of the learning assessment model of Pellegrino et al. (2001), the interview model of Delfos (2001), and the available research on dynamic educational assessment (e.g., Allsopp et al., 2008; Bannink, 2010; Black et al., 2004; Ginsburg, 1997, 2009).
We expected the conduct of dynamic math interviews to indeed help teachers identify the math learning needs of low math achievers. In addition, we expected that teachers demonstrating high levels of competence for the conduct of dynamic math interviews also show relatively better mathematics teaching behavior. The underlying assumption is that such teachers will benefit most from the use of dynamic math interviews to identify specific math learning needs of children, subsequently put this information into daily teaching practice, and thus promote the mathematical development of all children and those initially showing low mathematics achievement in particular. Observations of mathematics teaching behavior afforded us information on the levels of effective mathematics teaching behavior.