Exploring Ways of Contributing Math Talk in a Knowledge Building Community
Griffen et al. (2013) found that 75% of instructional math lesson time was used to teach algorithms while only 19% focused on conceptual understanding. Knowledge Building (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003) is defined as “the production and continual improvement of knowledge of value to a community” (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003: p. 1370). Supporting math talk through Knowledge Building should result in rich, inclusive, and purposeful discourse. The goal of the current study is to engage students in constructing mathematical explanations, not by simply sharing their answers, but to increase conceptual understanding in geometry. Chuy, Resendes, and Scardamalia (2010) developed a “Ways of Contributing” analysis that has been used to assess explanation seeking dialogue and to determine if elementary school students are constructing coherent explanations (Resendes, 2014). The “Ways of Contributing” that they identify are important to the Knowledge Building community as they frame contributions that allow discourse to advance. The scale has not been used in the context of mathematics. The current study will be the first to explore that, and the extent to which students articulate ideas, learn from one another, are engaged as active agents with responsibility & agency, innovative ideas, & deeper conceptual understanding, which can contribute to deep mathematical understandings and initiate reflective ideas.
