Page 185 - Children’s mathematical development and learning needs in perspective of teachers’ use of dynamic math interviews

The facilitating role of dynamic math interviews
The second research question concerned the extent to which dynamic math interviews can be shown to facilitate the identification of math learning needs and promote teachers’ mathematics teaching and thereby children’s mathematics learning. In Chapter 4, the quality of the dynamic math interviews conducted by teachers before and after participation in a professional development program and practice with the conduct of dynamic math interview was examined in addition to aspects of their mathematics teaching behavior, mathematical knowledge for teaching, and mathematics teaching self-efficacy. The research addressing the question whether dynamic math interviews are an adequate way to identify children’s math learning needs is described in Chapter 5.
The teacher professional development program in combination with an extended practice period was found to clearly foster better deployment of dynamic math interviews and more effective mathematics teaching practice on the part of the teachers participating in the present research (Chapter 4). This was apparent from improvement of quality of the dynamic math interviews and from positive effects on teacher factors.
The professional development program included the explanation of a scripted tool specifically developed for purposes of the present research and to help teachers with the conduct of interactive and process-oriented (i.e., dynamic) math interviews (Allsopp et al., 2008; Ginsburg, 2009; Lee & Johnston-Wilder, 2013). The active involvement of the child in their own mathematics learning stands central in these interviews. As part of the program, teaching involving dynamic math interviews was explained along with active, practice-based methods for encouraging children’s mathematics learning. Articles concerned with the teaching of mathematics were read and discussed. Coherence was achieved by focusing on adapting math teaching on learning needs of children. The use of video was a core component of the professional development program. The use of examples of dynamic math interviews on video, individual feedback from the trainer on the videorecorded pretest and posttest math interview, and feedback from other teachers on videorecorded math interviews proved to be effective features of the program. This finding is in line with research showing
6
Summary and general discussion
183