Making Mathematical Meaning Through Dialogue: “Once You Think of It, the Z Minus Three Seems Pretty Weird”

Abstract

In our ongoing qualitative classroom research, we adopt a sociocultural perspective to investigate discourse, and its role in how children and teachers make meaning of mathematics in a fifth grade inquiry classroom. Our theoretical perspective draws primarily on Vygotsky (1978, 1986) and Bakhtin (1981, 1986) each of whom examines how social forms of meaning influence individual cognition. The episode described in this paper examines the process whereby individual and group developmental trajectories are constructed, and allows us to explore the relationship between discourse and knowing. We combine a longitudinal design with a case study approach to focus on the collaborative mathematical problem solving. We use video capture to help us listen to children’s discussions in classroom activities and small group interactions. Our analysis of the verbal data recorded on video identifies patterns of interaction, development and change in participants’ use of mathematical language and concepts, and their evolving understanding, through discussion and argument, of an algebraic expression constructed by one of the children. The findings lead us to argue for i) a more generative view of the zone of proximal development as a site of learning and of identity formation, ii) an expanded view of the role of the teacher in inquiry classrooms, and iii) an appreciation for the valuable roles difference and resistance play in knowledge building.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 83 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.