Assisting teachers and students to reform the mathematics classroom

This study examines the usefulness of selected aspects of Tharp and Gallimore's (1988) theory of assistance as a theoretical framework for describing and analyzing change efforts in a middle school mathematics reform project. Drawing upon Tharp and Gallimore's redefinition of teaching as assisting performance and learning as the result of assisted performance, the social organization of a school-based mathematics reform effort in which teacher educators, mathematics teachers, and students both assist and are assisted is analyzed. In addition, one particular classroom assistance activity is presented and analyzed in terms of characteristics of assistance that, according to the theory, should lead to significant learning.

[1]  James V. Wertsch,et al.  Culture, communication, and cognition : Vygotskian perspectives , 1987 .

[2]  Celia Hoyles,et al.  Cognition and instruction : special issue processes and products of collaborative problem solving : some interdisciplinary perspectives , 1995 .

[3]  B. Rogoff.  Apprenticeship in Thinking: Cognitive Development in Social Context , 1990 .

[4]  Luis C. Moll,et al.  Vygotsky and education: Creating zones of possibilities: Combining social contexts for instruction , 1990 .

[5]  E. Forman.  Discourse, intersubjectivity, and the development of peer collaboration: A Vygotskian approach. , 1992 .

[6]  N. Minick,et al.  Contexts for Learning: Sociocultural Dynamics in Children's Development , 1993 .

[7]  J. Oakes,et al.  Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality. , 1986 .

[8]  Denis Newman,et al.  The Construction Zone: Working for Cognitive Change in School , 1989 .

[9]  A. Bishop.  Mathematical Enculturation: A Cultural Perspective on Mathematics Education , 1988 .

[10]  C. Hirsch.  Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics , 1988 .

[11]  Ina V. S. Mullis,et al.  The Mathematics Report Card: Are We Measuring Up? Trends and Achievement Based on the 1986 National Assessment. , 1988 .

[12]  Edward A. Silver,et al.  The Quasar Project , 1996 .

[13]  R. Gallimore,et al.  Rousing Minds to Life: Teaching, Learning, and Schooling in Social Context , 1988 .

[14]  M. Eisenhart,et al.  The Ethnographic Research Tradition and Mathematics Education Research. , 1988 .

[15]  E. Forman,et al.  The role of peer interaction in the social construction of mathematical knowledge , 1989 .

[16]  Leslie P. Steffe,et al.  Theories of Mathematical Learning , 1996 .

[17]  N. Minick.  L. S. Vygotsky and Soviet activity theory : new perspectives on the relationship between mind and society , 1985 .

[18]  S. Stodolsky.  The Subject Matters: Classroom Activity in Math and Social Studies , 1988 .

[19]  Luis C. Moll.  Vygotsky and Education: Instructional Implications and Applications of Sociohistorical Psychology , 1991 .

[20]  Stephen Lerman,et al.  Cultural perspectives on the mathematics classroom , 1994 .

[21]  E. Silver,et al.  Assessment in the Context of Mathematics Instruction Reform: The Design of Assessment in the QUASAR Project. , 1993 .

[22]  Penelope L. Peterson,et al.  Effective Teaching, Student Engagement in Classroom Activities, and Sex-Related Differences in Learning Mathematics , 1985 .

[23]  L. Vygotsky.  Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes: Harvard University Press , 1978 .

[24]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation , 1991 .