Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Open Access Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Mathematical Sciences (MS)

Administrative Home Department

Department of Mathematical Sciences

Advisor 1

Shari Stockero

Committee Member 1

Allan Struthers

Committee Member 2

Amy Lark

Abstract

The goal of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of an intervention focused on developing mathematics graduate teaching assistants’ skills of noticing and effectively responding to instances of student mathematical thinking that have significant potential to further students’ learning. Four mathematics graduate teaching assistants participated in a semester-long intervention in which video of undergraduate mathematics lessons was individually analyzed and then discussed collectively with the researcher on a weekly basis. The MOST Analytic Framework (Leatham, Peterson, Stockero, & Van Zoest, 2015; Stockero, Peterson, Leatham, & Van Zoest, 2014) was introduced as a tool to aid in the analysis and discussion of the instances the graduate teaching assistants tagged using video analysis software. A pre- and post-interview was also conducted in which the graduate teaching assistants analyzed a video in real time and proposed responses to instances in the video they deemed important. In addition, the graduate teaching assistants completed an assessment of their common content knowledge. The instances tagged by the graduate teaching assistants were categorized by the researcher and then analyzed to track changes in noticing skills throughout the intervention. Results indicate that the intervention was successful in improving the graduate teaching assistants’ noticing skills in a variety of ways and in their ability to propose student-centered responses to instances they identified in video. Assessment scores showed no evidence of common content knowledge contributing to differences observed in the graduate teaching assistants’ noticing skills.

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