Engaging with others’ mathematical ideas: Interrelationships among student participation, teachers’ instructional practices, and learning

This paper explores the relationships between student participation in classroom conversations, teacher practices, and student learning in elementary school mathematics classrooms. Six teachers and 111 children aged 8–10 participated in the study. Students and teachers were videotaped as they discussed how to solve mathematical problems during whole-class and small-group discussions. The results show that the level of student engagement with each otherʹs ideas and the incidence of students providing detailed explanations of their problem-solving strategies were positively related to student achievement. While teachers used a variety of instructional practices to encourage students to attend to and engage with each otherʹs thinking, how teachers followed up on their initial moves was important for whether students engaged with others’ ideas at a high level.