Audience
reseachers
Keywords
Learning Processes, Learning Strategies, Mathematics Instruction, Teaching Methods, Theory Practice Relationship
Author(s)
Boaler, J.
Date
2002
Abstract
Over the last ten years I have studied the learning opportunities provided to students in different mathematics classrooms, with different teaching approaches. The goal of these studies has been to understand the ways in which the different approaches have shaped students’ knowledge of mathematics, and to begin to tease apart the complex relationships between teaching and learning, between knowledge and practice, and between learning and believing. This has provided me with the opportunity to learn about learning, as I have been fortunate enough to watch thousands of mathematics lessons, and analyze students’ mathematical development as it has progressed over time. I have done this at the time of what some have described as a cognitive revolution (Schoenfeld, 1999; Resnick, 1993) as views of learning have radically shifted and changed. In this paper I will set out some of the changed perspectives on learning and ‘knowledge transfer’ that I have developed through my studies in England and California, describing a little of three different studies. I will document a path through my own learning about learning in order to trace an expansion of the dimensions that I have come to believe constitute the learning experience.