Inquiry pedagogy to promote emerging proportional reasoning in primary students

Jill Fielding-Wells; Shelley Dole; Katie Makar

doi:10.1007/s13394-013-0111-6

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Inquiry pedagogy to promote emerging proportional reasoning in primary students

Journal article

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Inquiry pedagogy to promote emerging proportional reasoning in primary students

Jill Fielding-Wells, Shelley Dole and Katie Makar

Mathematics Education Research Journal, Vol.26(1), pp.47-77

2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13394-013-0111-6

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Abstract

Curriculum and Pedagogy

proportional reasoning

mathematical inquiry

classroom argumentation

Proportional reasoning as the capacity to compare situations in relative (multiplicative) rather than absolute (additive) terms is an important outcome of primary school mathematics. Research suggests that students tend to see comparative situations in additive rather than multiplicative terms and this thinking can influence their capacity for proportional reasoning in later years. In this paper, excerpts from a classroom case study of a fourth-grade classroom (students aged 9) are presented as they address an inquiry problem that required proportional reasoning. As the inquiry unfolded, students' additive strategies were progressively seen to shift to proportional thinking to enable them to answer the question that guided their inquiry. In wrestling with the challenges they encountered, their emerging proportional reasoning was supported by the inquiry model used to provide a structure, a classroom culture of inquiry and argumentation, and the proportionality embedded in the problem context.

Details

Title: Inquiry pedagogy to promote emerging proportional reasoning in primary students
Authors: Jill Fielding-Wells (Author) - University of Queensland
Shelley Dole (Author) - University of Queensland
Katie Makar (Author) - University of Queensland
Publication details: Mathematics Education Research Journal, Vol.26(1), pp.47-77
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Date published: 2014
DOI: 10.1007/s13394-013-0111-6
ISSN: 1033-2170
Organisation Unit: School of Education - Legacy; Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre; School of Education and Tertiary Access; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
Language: English
Record Identifier: 99450094402621
Output Type: Journal article

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