Re: Best practices (and Classroom community)

Ellice A Forman (ellice+ who-is-at pitt.edu)
Sat, 3 Jan 1998 09:45:11 -0500 (EST)

In my previous messages on this topic I mentioned the work of Warren and
Rosebery in science education and the work of Lee in literacy but I forgot
to mention my own work in math education. I have published several papers
and have a couple in press/under review on the topic of "best practice" in
teaching/learning mathematics in low-income communities. I was able to use
a small part of an extensive dataset gathered by the QUASAR project in 6
different middle schools across the country that were attempting to
implement the new standards in mathematics from the National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics. All schools served low-income, multicultural
communities. Here are the references:

Brown, C.A., Stein, M.K., & Forman (1996). Assisting teachers and students
to reform the mathematics classroom. Educational Studies in Mathematics,
31, 63-93.

Forman, E.A. (1996). Learning mathematics as participation in classroom
practice: Implications of sociocultural theory for educational reform. In
L. Steffe, P. Nesher, P. Cobb, G.A. Goldin, & B. Greer (Eds). Theories of
mathematical learning (pp. 115-130). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Forman, E.A., Larreamendy-Joerns, J., Stein, M.K., & Brown, C. (in press).
"You're going to want to find out which and prove it": Discussion
orchestestration and argumentation in mathematics classrooms. To appear in
a special issue of Learning and Instruction on the social context of
learning mathematics. (B. van Oers & E.A. Forman, Guest Editors).

Forman, E.A., McCormick, D., & Donato, R. (under review). Learning what
counts as a mathematical explanation: Changing discourse practices in a
reform classroom.

As an added anecdote, I presented a version of the fourth paper at AERA a
few years ago and one member of the audience complained that no one on the
panel had presented data on the higher-level reasoning and argumentation
of low income populations. He said something like--we don't need more
good news about the mathematical abilities of middle class children. I
enjoyed reminding him that my data on argumentation came from a classroom
of low-income students. Obviously, he didn't expect those results from
that population.

Ellice Forman
University of Pittsburgh