Why Ask Why? an Analysis of Teachers' Why-Questions in Elementary and Middle Grade Mathematics Classrooms

Published In

Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education

Document Type

Citation

Publication Date

6-25-2024

Abstract

Teacher questioning serves a crucial role in creating classrooms where students’ mathematical reasoning is centered. Generally, why-questions are positioned as powerful tools to probe student thinking and engage students in mathematical argumentation. Yet, in our recent research we found that why-questions did not serve to differentiate traditional classrooms from those with a focus on justification and explanation. In this study, we investigated how linguistically similarly why-questions may operate differently. We leveraged disparate literature bases to frame the ambiguity of why-questions and analyzed a set of 61 lessons representing three school districts and spanning grades four through eight. We found that expected student responses to why-questions ranged from a recalled fact to rich justification depending on a number of contextual features. These differences in why-questions accounted for significant variation in student activity in lessons. We suggest that mathematics teacher educators similarly problematize why-questions in order to maximize their potential.

Rights

© 2024 Springer Nature

DOI

10.1007/s10857-024-09644-4

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/42448

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