Eric J. Knuth - US grants

Proof is central to the discipline and practice of mathematics. In school mathematics proof is rarely encountered outside the realm of Euclidean geometry. Recent reform efforts in mathematics education call on schools to provide all students with opportunities and experiences throughout the mathematics curriculum. Yet little is known about the ways grade school students learn to conjecture, to justify and to prove mathematically. More specifically, the grade-levels where least is known are 6th through 8th. With this in mind then, the objectives of this middle school proof study are as follows:
Understand the development of students' competencies in justifying and proving:
To understand the conditions and pedagogy necessary to promote the development of those competencies; and
To develop teacher preparation and professional development materials designed both to enhance teachers' understandings of proof and to support them in fostering the development of students' competencies in justifying and proving.

This is a collaborative research project between three universities. The project is a comprehensive, systemic research and development program addressing three inter-related tiers of study: student learning and development; teacher beliefs, knowledge, and practice; and professional development. The project is grounded in both sound theory of how students develop algebraic reasoning and acquire domain knowledge and skills and in the beliefs and existing practices of teachers. In the student tier a detailed developmental model of students' evolving algebraic reasoning and skill acquisition will be constructed concentrating on the transition from arithmetic to algebraic reasoning. In the teaching tier a promising pedagogical approach, Bridging Instruction, will be tested. In the professional development tier a teacher professional development prototype will be implemented. The prototypeT extends an existing technology based approach. It enables the evaluation of a scalable model of teacher professional development. Technology is a central aspect of this project. The findings of this research will be implemented into a coherent educational program for students and teachers using Algebra Cognitive Tutors and the STEP web teacher professional development environments.

Many consider mathematical reasoning to be a basic mathematical skill and inseparable from knowing and using mathematics. Yet despite its importance, mathematics education research continues to paint a bleak picture of students' abilities to reason mathematically. In contrast, cognitive science research has revealed surprising strengths in children's abilities to reason in non-mathematical domains, suggesting that children are capable of developing complex and abstract causal theories, and of using powerful strategies of inductive inference. Thus, this raises something of a paradox: Why are children so good at reasoning in non-mathematical domains, yet so poor at reasoning in mathematical domains? The purpose of this study is to explore this seeming paradox. In particular, our goal is to extend the cognitive science research into the domain of mathematics education and, more specifically, into the domain of middle school mathematics. We seek to understand the strengths and weaknesses of students' reasoning in and out of mathematics, to understand the connections between students' reasoning in different domains, and, ultimately, to improve students' abilities to reason mathematically.

Mathematical reasoning requires understanding connections between different representations of mathematical information. The way mathematical representations are linked in the classroom may determine whether students come to understand important mathematical principles and procedures. Our past research showed that teachers use various forms of visual scaffolding to link different mathematical representations. The purpose of this project is to understand how variations in teachers' visual scaffolding affect students' learning. Our specific focus is on the nonverbal supports that teachers produce in instructional episodes that link related representations of mathematical information. In particular, we examine those nonverbal supports that serve to ground ideas in the physical environment or in familiar actions, experiences or representations. The research has three aims: (1) to investigate whether students' learning is facilitated if teachers ground the to-be-linked ideas with hand gestures (as opposed to using speech alone); (2) to examine whether certain types of nonverbal supports are especially beneficial for learning (specifically, redundant vs. complementary gestures, and pointing vs. representational gestures); and (3) to examine whether gestures offer a "special" way to visually scaffold ideas, in the sense that they are more effective at doing so than other, non-gestural methods of visual scaffolding. We will address these aims in experiments with middle school students learning about linear equations. The experiments will involve video lessons that vary the teachers' gestures or the medium used to highlight aspects of the linked representations (hand gestures or digital icons). We will assess students' conceptual and procedural knowledge of linear equations before and after the lessons, so that we can evaluate how variations in teachers' visual scaffolding affect students' learning. We will also conduct a pilot study to prepare us to extend this line of inquiry to college students learning about statistics. This pilot study will investigate how teachers link representations using speech and gesture in instruction about confidence intervals.

This work will contribute to our scientific understanding of learning and instruction from an embodied cognition perspective. By experimentally manipulating the ways in which relations between mathematical ideas are conveyed, and exploring the consequences for learning, we will gain a deeper understanding of the cognitive processes involved in acquiring mathematical understanding. This work will provide an empirical basis for recommendations about how teachers can use visual scaffolding effectively.

The Impact of Early Algebra on Students' Algebra-Readiness is a collaborative project at the University of Wisconsin and TERC, Inc. They are implementing and studying a research-based curriculum that was designed to help children in grades 3-5 prepare for learning algebra at the middle school level. Researchers are investigating the impact of a long-term, comprehensive early algebra experience on students as they proceed from third grade to sixth grade. Researchers are working to build a learning progression that describes how algebraic concepts develop and mature from early grades through high school. This study helps to build our knowledge about the piece of the progression that is just prior to entering middle school where many students begin formal instruction in algebra.

Building on previous research about early algebra learning, researchers will teach a curriculum that was carefully designed to reflect what we know about learning algebraic concepts. Previous research has shown that young children from very diverse backgrounds have the ability to construct algebraic ideas such as equality, representation, generalization, and functions. Researchers are collecting data about students' algebraic knowledge as well as arithmetical knowledge.

We know that the majority of students in the United States struggle with learning formal algebra. By studying the implementation of the research-based curriculum for an extended period of time, researcher's are learning about how algebraic ideas are connected and whether or not early instruction on algebraic ideas will help students learn more formal ideas in middle school.

This research project is an investigation of the role that examples play in helping learners become proficient in proving mathematical conjectures. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin and New York University are building a framework that characterizes the development of example use as students advance from middle school into post secondary school. Using this developmental information, the researchers are creating instructional strategies that help students think about the nature and value of proof as well as how to construct a mathematical proof.

The researchers are interviewing middle school students, high school students, undergraduate mathematics majors in college, and practicing mathematicians in order to learn how they use examples in the process of creating a proof or a deductive argument. They are using teaching experiments to test various strategies on individual students and to learn more about students' thinking about the process of proving. They are also using small group instruction to experiment with instructional strategies and move closer to a future goal of preparing materials for full class instruction.

Creating and understanding mathematical proofs has always been difficult for students, and yet it is a critical foundation for developing mathematical understanding. Students often cling to the idea that a large set of examples is sufficient for proving a conjecture true. This misconception has often discouraged instructors from using examples in teaching students to prove conjectures. However, examples can stimulate thinking that guides a student to construct a proof through valid, deductive reasoning. This project is advancing understanding of how students learn to prove and providing tested, instructional strategies that teachers can use to help students.