CAREER: Understanding Latinx Students' Stories of Doing and Learning Mathematics

尽管美国的拉丁裔人口持续增加，但各种研究表明，拉丁裔学生在数学课堂上往往得不到高质量的学习体验。因此，拉丁裔学生在高等数学课程和涉及数学的职业中所占比例不足。更好地了解拉丁裔学生的观点和经历对提高他们学习数学的机会至关重要。然而，很少有研究表明拉美裔学生对学习和做数学的看法，特别是在从小学到中学的过渡时期。本研究的目的是改善拉丁裔青年从小学高年级到初中早期数学课堂的数学教学。该项目包括三个主要部分：调查拉丁裔家庭/社区的政策、媒体和口述历史，以了解参与拉丁裔学生数学教育的背景；探索拉丁裔学生关于他们学习和做数学的经历的故事，以了解这些学生的观点；并制作参与者关于学习和做数学的故事的纪录片视频肖像（或合成案例），可用于教师准备和专业发展。最后，该项目将回顾整个项目期间的经验，以制定一个框架，可用于改善拉丁裔学生的数学教育经验。该项目将为拉丁裔学生如何经历不平等提供一个窗口，并可以拓宽数学教育者对拉丁裔学生参与严格数学的机会的看法。该项目还将扩大该领域对拉丁裔学生种族/民族和语言身份如何影响他们学习数学经验的理解。它还将确定影响拉丁裔学生学习数学经验的关键因素，以确定需要设计和实施干预措施和方案的具体领域。该项目的一个基本假设是，仔细捕捉和理解拉丁裔学生的故事，可以阐明这些学生在数学学习和实践中所带来的优势和韧性。这是一个教师早期职业发展计划项目，响应国家科学基金会范围内的活动，提供最负盛名的奖项，以支持有潜力在研究和教育中成为学术榜样的早期职业教师。它被提交给探索研究K-12项目，该项目旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高pre -12学生和教师对科学、技术、工程和数学的学习和教学。本研究项目对拉丁裔学生从小学到初中数学阶段的数学认同的发展进行特征分析。本研究的首要研究问题是：拉丁裔学生从小学数学过渡到中学数学时，学习和做数学的发展故事是什么？为了回答这个问题，本研究分为三个阶段：1)通过研究政策文件、当地报纸文章和对社区成员进行焦点小组访谈来理解和记录历史背景；2)使用民族志方法在两年多的时间里探索学生学习和做数学的故事和临床访谈，以了解他们如何思考和构建关于数学的论点（即测量，除法和代数模式）；3)制作可用于教师教育的视频案例。传统的数学教学方式通过不承认其他文化对数学科学的贡献而使谁能做数学和谁不能做数学的形象永世化（guti<s:2>, 2017），数学已经成为社会流动的守门人（Martin, Gholson, &; Leonard, 2010; Stinson, 2004）。关注拉美裔学生的故事可以启发教师如何构建公平的学习空间，以及他们如何定义拉美裔学生的成功。该项目的中心假设是，拉丁裔小学生的故事可以确定种族和语言如何影响他们的数学身份，以及学校和课堂实践如何使不平等永久化。最后，这些数据和视频案例将被用来建立一个概念框架，以理解参与学生发展数学恒等式的发展。这个框架将提供一个深入了解发展中的种族/民族，语言和数学身份的参与拉丁裔学生。本计划所制作的教育资料（例如：影片纪录片、讨论资料）将透过计划网站免费提供给所有感兴趣的人士。这些材料的分发，以及对拉丁裔学生学习数学经验的进一步了解，将有助于在小学和初中阶段制定计划和干预措施，以增加拉丁裔学生在STEM职业中的代表性。此外，确定影响拉丁裔学生学习数学经验的关键因素可以确定仍需要设计和实施干预措施和计划的具体领域。未来的项目可能包括对这些项目的评估。该项目还将为从事拉丁裔或其他边缘化学生工作的准教师和在职教师提供专业学习经验。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Although the Latino population throughout the United States continues to increase, various researchers have shown that Latino students are often not afforded high quality learning experiences in their mathematics classrooms. As a result, Latino students are underrepresented in higher level mathematics courses and careers involving mathematics. Having a better understanding of Latino students' perspectives and experiences is imperative to improving their opportunities to learn mathematics. Yet, little research has made central Latinos students' perspectives of learning and doing mathematics, especially over a critical period of time like the transition from elementary to middle school. The goal of this study will be to improve mathematics teaching and learning for Latino youth as they move from upper elementary to early middle school mathematics classrooms. The project involves three major parts: investigating the policy, media, and oral histories of Latino families/communities to understand the context for participating Latino students’ mathematics education; exploring Latino students’ stories about their experiences learning and doing mathematics to understand these students’ perspectives; and creating documentary video portraitures (or composite cases) of participants stories about learning and doing mathematics that can be used in teacher preparation and professional development. Finally, the project will look across the experiences over the duration of the project to develop a framework that can be used to improve Latino students’ mathematics education experiences. This project will provide a window into how Latino students may experience inequities and can broaden mathematics educators’ views on opportunities to engage Latino students in rigorous mathematics. The project will also broaden the field’s understanding of how Latino students racial/ethnic and linguistic identities influence their experiences learning mathematics. It will also identify key factors that impact Latino students’ experiences in learning mathematics to pinpoint specific areas where interventions and programs need to be designed and implemented. An underlying assumption of the project is that carefully capturing and understanding Latino students’ stories can illuminate the strengths and resilience these students bring to their learning and doing of mathematics. This is a Faculty Early Career Development Program project responsive to a National Science Foundation-wide activity that offers the most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education. It was submitted to the Discovery Research K-12 program, which seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics by preK-12 students and teachers through research and development of innovative resources, models, and tools. This research project characterizes and analyses the developing mathematical identities of Latinx students transitioning from elementary to middle grades mathematics. The overarching research question for this study is: What are the developing stories of learning and doing mathematics of Latino students as they transition from elementary to middle school mathematics? To answer this question, this study is divided into three phases: 1) Understanding and documenting the historical context by examining policy documents, local newspaper articles, and doing focus group interviews with community members; 2) Using ethnographic methods over two years to explore students’ stories of learning and doing mathematics and clinical interviews to understand how they think about and construct arguments about mathematics (i.e., measurement, division, and algebraic patterning); and 3) Creating video-cases that can be used in teacher education. Traditional ways of teaching mathematics perpetuate images of who can and cannot do mathematics by not acknowledging contributions of other cultures to the mathematical sciences (Gutiérrez, 2017) and the way mathematics has become a gatekeeper for social mobility (Martin, Gholson, &amp; Leonard, 2010; Stinson, 2004). Focusing on Latino students’ stories can illuminate teachers’ construction of equitable learning spaces and how they define success for their Latino students. The central hypothesis of this project is that elementary Latino students’ stories can identify how race and language are influential to their mathematical identities and how school and classroom practices may perpetuate inequities. Finally, the data and video-cases will then be used to develop a conceptual framework for understanding the development of the participating students’ developing mathematical identities. This framework will provide an in-depth understanding of the developing racial/ethnic, linguistic, and mathematical identities of the participating Latino students. The educational material developed (e.g. video documentaries, discussion material) from this project will be made available to all interested parties freely through the project website. The distribution of these materials, along with further understanding of Latino students' experiences learning mathematics, will help in developing programs and interventions at the elementary and middle grade level to increase the representation of Latino students in STEM careers. Additionally, identifying the key factors impacting Latino students' experiences in learning mathematics can pinpoint specific areas where interventions and programs still need to be designed and implemented. Future projects could include the assessment of these programs. This project will also inform the development of professional learning experiences for prospective and practicing teachers working with Latino or other marginalized students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.