Natasha Speer – October 7 Colloquium
The Maine Center for Research in STEM Education
(RiSE Center)
presents
Natasha M. Speer, Department of Mathematics & Statistics and Maine RiSE Center,
The University of Maine
Brian Frank, Department of Physics & Astronomy,
Middle Tennessee State University
Monday, October 7, 2013 at 3:00 pm
Arthur St. John Hill, ESRB, Barrows Hall
Developing knowledge for teaching velocity and acceleration
Over the past two decades education researchers have demonstrated that various types of knowledge, including pedagogical content knowledge, influence teachers’ instructional practices and their students’ learning opportunities. Findings suggest that by engaging in the work of teaching, teachers acquire knowledge of how students think, but we have not yet captured this learning as it occurs. We examined whether novice instructors can develop such knowledge via the activities of attending to student work and we identified mechanisms by which such knowledge development occurs. Data come from interviews with physics graduate teaching assistants as they examined and discussed students’ written work on problems involving rates of change. During those discussions, some instructors appear to develop new knowledge–either about students’ thinking or about the content—and others did not. We compare and contrast three cases representing a range of outcomes and identify factors that enabled some instructors to build new knowledge.
Natasha Speer is faculty member in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at UMaine and is also a member of the Maine Research in STEM Education Center. The focus of her work is on the teaching and learning of college level mathematics. She researches the knowledge teachers use when teaching calculus. In particular, she examines the kinds of knowledge needed by teachers to facilitate mathematically productive classroom discussions. She also conducts research into how graduate students learn to teach and is involved in a variety of projects to develop and provide teaching-related professional development for novice teachers of college mathematics.
Brian Frank is an Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Middle Tennessee State University, where he conducts physics education research and prepares future physics teachers. His research focuses on knowledge development in pre-service physics teachers and student engagement with physics outside of the classroom.