Research Cafe Page 1 Lisa Falconi ETEC530 66A

I plan to discuss or have the participants engage in the topic of using constructivism in
the elementary mathematics classroom:

1. The three articles I have chosen for my research cafe are:

Lui, A. M., & Bonner, S. M. (2016). Preservice and inservice teachers' knowledge,
beliefs, and instructional planning in primary school mathematics. Teaching
and Teacher Education, 56, 1-13. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2016.01.015
Simon, M. (1995). Reconstructing Mathematics Pedagogy from a Constructivist
Perspective. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 26(2), 114-145.
doi:1. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/749205 doi:1

Harkness, S. S. (2008). Social constructivism and the Believing Game: A

mathematics teacher’s practice and its implications. Educational Studies in
Mathematics Educ Stud Math, 70(3), 243-258.
doi:10.1007/s10649-008-9151-3

When searching for my articles within UBC's library, I searched for the term
“constructivist strategies in the mathematics classroom” while choosing:

● Items with full text online

● Scholarly materials, including peer-reviewed, and
● Peer reviewed publications.

I excluded newspaper articles, book reviews and dissertations to narrow the search
results. However, this generated too many returns so I used the advanced feature
to be more specific. Including specific words in separate windows as follows: “using
constructivist strategies”, “mathematics”, and “elementary school” still generated too
many responses so I excluded “chemistry”, “reading”, and “writing” to eliminate
some articles I wasn’t interested in. Lastly, I sorted the results by newest as I
wanted some more recent research. As part of my investigation I also used JSTOR
and Springer to search and used similar strategies as noted above.

2. Mathematics performance is an issue internationally so I feel that this subject will

interest participants to see what the research says about using constructivism and
inquiry in the classroom. I struggle with the concept of constructivism in
mathematics and I am sure others will too. These articles together will be of
particular interest because they have a similar thread running through them which
confirms some of the thoughts and ideas which would provide solid evidence for
improving instruction within a teacher’s own classroom. The Simon article conforms
Research Cafe Page 2 Lisa Falconi ETEC530 66A

with our readings in Fosnot and provides some specific teacher responsibilities in
mathematics. The articles have specific examples of activities teachers developed
which, again, would support a teacher in developing activities that support
constructivism in their mathematics classroom. Lastly, the articles should encourage
participants to rethink their ideas and assumptions about teaching mathematics.

3. Before beginning the readings, it would be interesting to see where participants are
at in terms of their knowledge of constructivism in the mathematics classroom by
having them create a concept map on Mindomo (www.mindomo.com). This is one
way of eliciting prior knowledge from students. After they have completed the
readings they could update the concepts maps with what they have learned. I’m not
sure if this is a realist expectation or not. Some of the questions I would like
participants to consider include:

● How does the teacher’s knowledge or lack of knowledge affect the lessons? How
would this affect the learning environment?
● What is the impact of the social construct in the classroom on mathematics
inquiry? What are the implications? What can teachers do to assist in making the
classroom a safe place?
● How, as teachers, do we modify our planning to meet our responsibility of being
informed as to our students mathematical knowledge?
● How does the background of the educator affect their ability to create an effective
constructivist classroom?

Another idea to determine prior knowledge would be to create a Google forms

survey for teachers to fill in before beginning their reading. The questions could be
used to introduce new knowledge to participants but the questions above may need
to be modified if these concepts are already known to the participants. An online
quiz could be developed to see if knowledge is being garnered and lastly, a concept
map of ideas or a presentation as a videoscribe, for example, would allow
participants to share their learning with others.