ERIC Number: EJ1217631
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-May
Pages: 6
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0025-5769
EISSN: N/A
Four Moves to Motivate Students in Problem Solving
Deshpande, Anjali; Guglielmo, Shannon
Mathematics Teacher, v112 n7 p510-515 May 2019
In recent years, increased attention has been given to the ideas of growth mindsets, brain science, and mathematical mindsets thanks to the important contributions by Dweck (2008), Boaler (2015), and their research teams. Many math teachers invest the time and energy into thinking about what motivates students to learn. The body of work on mindsets, or how students "perceive their abilities" (Boaler 2013; Dweck 2015), struck math teachers Anjali Deshpande and Shannon Guglielmo as particularly important. They used what they learned about mindsets to develop an inquiry project, including student surveys and focus groups, to explore how specific teaching practices motivate students to persist in problem-solving. The first step in the inquiry project was to administer Dweck's (2007) Mindset Assessment Profile (MAP) to Guglielmo's students to learn about where they were on the continuum between fixed and growth mindsets. The goal was to investigate pedagogical strategies that have an impact on student growth mindsets; therefore, Deshpande and Guglielmo gave the survey twice during the year (September and June) to detect any change in mindsets over time. The survey data was reduced to MAP scores, as recommended by the authors of the MindsetWorks materials. Student MAP scores ranged from neutral to strong growth mindsets in the fall and summer. They then constructed change score quartiles by subtracting the September score from the June score, naming the September to June change score quartiles as students who: (1) maintained a growth mindset score (higher-higher); (2) maintained a more neutral mindset score (neutral-neutral); (3) started with a more neutral mindset and developed a growth mindset score (neutral-higher); and (4) started with a growth mindset score and ended the year with a neutral mindset score (higher-neutral). They then randomly selected students from each change score quartile to form focus groups of four to six students each, running for about 25 minutes each. The focus group data indicated that four pedagogical moves had the most impact in motivating students to engage and persist in problem solving.
Descriptors: Student Motivation, Problem Solving, Motivation Techniques, Mathematics Instruction, Teaching Methods, Persistence, High School Students, Self Concept
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. 1906 Association Drive, Reston, VA 20191. Tel: 800-235-7566; Tel: 703-620-9840; Fax: 703-476-2570; e-mail: NCTM@nctm.org; Web site: http://www.nctm.org/publications/mathematics-teacher/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: High Schools; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A