Page 159 - 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
6: Most frequently provided support (i.e., four or more times during dynamic math interview): a) stimulating the child to write down steps in thinking, b) verbal support, c) verbal support provided by notes by the teacher, d) material support e) use of concrete representations of abstract models, f) use of representations of concrete mathematical actions and situations, g) clear structuring, h) reduction of complexity, i) demonstration, and j) modelling.
7-8: Adequacy of responding (7) and providing a safe and stimulating climate (8). These aspects of the interviews were scored along a scale of 1 (= to a very small extent) to 4 (= to a very large extent).
9: Teacher summary of child’s math learning needs was scored along a scale of 0 (= not) to 1 (= to a very small extent) to 4 (= to a very large extent).
10: Scope of the dynamic math interview was distinguished using five categories of responding (a-e): teachers who focuses on the child’s math thinking and problem-solving; the child’s mathematics experiences, beliefs, and emotions; and actively involving the child in the identification of their math learning needs showing the most wide scope (a).
Adequacy
Our analysis of the dynamic math interviews provided an abundance of information. Only the highlights of the findings of relevance to our research question presented in Table 1 are outlined here. In Figure 3 some examples of the analyses of the data summarized in Table 1 are described in more detail.
All of the 19 teachers were found to ask more open than closed questions in the analyzed dynamic math interviews. For 14 of the teachers (73.7%), more than 20% of their questions addressed the math experiences, beliefs, and emotions of the child. Sixteen (84.2%) asked more process- than product-oriented questions (i.e., focused on children’s math thinking and problem-solving). Twelve of the dynamic math interviews (63.2 %) showed a wide range of attention and thus addressed: children’s math thinking and problem-
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