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  • [music]

  • >> DR. ELSA NUNEZ: Hello I'm Elsa Nunez, President of Eastern Connecticut State University.

  • At Eastern we encourage our students, whenever possible, to work with faculty on applied

  • research, so I am pleased to share with you new research findings about factors that contribute

  • to children's mathematical abilities. This information, gathered by faculty and

  • student researchers in Eastern's Center for Early Childhood Education, has powerful implications

  • for teachers who work with young children. I hope you find it useful.

  • [music]

  • >> DR. SUDHA SWAMINATHAN: The purpose of the math play study was to investigate teacher-child

  • interactions during play settings. But specifically we wanted to look at the math interactions,

  • so we wanted to study what kinds of teacher interactions led to stronger mathematical

  • engagement for preschool children.

  • >> DR. JEFFREY TRAWICK-SMITH: We were curious about whether teachersí interactions with

  • children, to kind of support play, would actually have an impact on their learning of number,

  • or mathematical thinking.

  • >> NARRATOR: Six Eastern Connecticut State University students assisted

  • with carrying out the study.

  • >> JENNY WOLFF: We did an assessment, the TEMA Assessment, with children in the beginning

  • of the school year to get a baseline about their mathematical ability and then we re-assessed

  • them at the end of the year to see how they progressed in those mathematical abilities.

  • We then also looked at, through some video, how the interactions with their teachers helped

  • those mathematical progressions.

  • >> DR. SWAMINATHAN: We recorded the children during play, and especially when the teacher

  • would come near them and talk to them.

  • >> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: We didn't ask teachers to do anything special. They didn't try out

  • any kind of intervention or method of teaching. We took videos of that very natural interaction

  • during free play time in classrooms.

  • >> CLAIRE FRYER: We edited those clips to only the teacher-child interactions and then

  • we coded those based on certain standards that we had, like how long they were, if they

  • were good interactions or not, and things like that.

  • >> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: We looked at whether there were relationships between the ways

  • that teachers kind of supported play, or interacted with children in play and mathematical thinking.

  • >> DR. SWAMINATHAN: The second part was we looked at the math behind the play interactions:

  • Was it related to number sense, was it related to problem solving? We looked at measurement

  • opportunities, we looked at communication, math talk communication. And our results were very

  • striking and fairly interesting.

  • >> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: We began to discover that there were several ways that teachers

  • support math while they're just kind of interacting with them, as they play.

  • >> Teacher: Alright, now I have another question. How do we find out the answer to that?

  • How do we find out if we're actually right?

  • >> NARRATOR: There were three major findings in the study. The first was related to teacher-child

  • interactions around number sense.

  • >> DR. SWAMINATHAN: The first math-related results showed that the more you talk about

  • numbers to children, the more they learn numbers.

  • >> Teacher: How many blocks do we have here? Can we count them? Can you help me count them?

  • >> Child: Look at this one! >> Teacher: That's so tall! Let's count

  • how tall it is. One, two, three.

  • >> JENNY WOLFF: Number sense for mathematical interactions is a basic understanding of

  • numerals and quantities.

  • >> Child: Five, six, eight. >> Teacher: Seven.

  • >> Child: Seven. >> Teacher: Eight.

  • >> Child: Eight.

  • >> JENNY WOLFF: There were a lot of interactions with number sense around board games.

  • The teacher was able to observe the mathematical ability by seeing how many spaces that child

  • moved and how that child understood the correlation between number and quantity.

  • >> Child: Watch this time! One, two, three, four, five, six.

  • Teacher: Very good.

  • >> DR. SWAMINATHAN: Research has shown that number sense is very critical in preschool,

  • so it wasn't surprising that we found that these children learned so much of number sense.

  • >> NARRATOR: The second finding was related to communication between teachers and children

  • about mathematics.

  • >> DR. SWAMINATHAN: The more interesting part of our study was that we found communication

  • was significantly important for these children.

  • >> JENNY WOLFF: Communication around mathematics is basically the child explaining their understanding

  • of a concept.

  • >> Teacher: What are the differences between the red one, the blue one, and the yellow?

  • >> Child: They're bigger and they're squares.

  • >> JENNY WOLFF: It may be a child explaining how they came to understand that two objects

  • are not the same size, maybe they compare it using standard measurement tools; maybe

  • they put it next to each other. But it's the child's ability to explain their processes,

  • and that can be aided by questions from the adult.

  • >> Teacher: How do we find out if it fits? >> Girl: We have to try it.

  • >> Boy: We have to measure. >> Teacher: Alright, so why don't we do that?

  • Do you have a ruler?

  • >> DR. SWAMINATHAN: So the teachers and the children who talk about math, so they actually

  • talked about their counting, they talked about their mathematical problem solving,

  • they talked about measurement.

  • >> Teacher: It's up to eleven? And how many was the light box? How many inches?

  • >> Child: Ten. >> Teacher: Ten. So which one's bigger?

  • >> DR. SWAMINATHAN: These children talked about math, and when they did, it wasn't

  • just to say what answer they got, which is the most typical expectation in classrooms.

  • They talked about their processes, how they went about solving things. Or they talked

  • about why something did not work. So those who engaged in math talk had greater mathematical

  • gains at the end of the school year.

  • >> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: This suggests that effort to get children to think numerically, and

  • also to talk about what they're doing as they're thinking about number or other areas

  • of math, that those things will actually have a positive impact on their math learning.

  • >> DR. SWAMINATHAN: And this has not actually been proven by earlier research and it's

  • only been talked about theoretically in the math circle, but it was interesting for us

  • to see a significant result in our study.

  • >> NARRATOR: The third major finding was about the importance of good-fit interactions

  • during all types of play.

  • >> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: When teachers support children's play, and they support it in a

  • way that really is aligned with what children are currently doing,

  • we call this a good fit play interaction.

  • >> Teacher: It has three flowers, where else do you see that? There you go.

  • >> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: A teacher studies what a child is currently doing in play, and then

  • provides just the right amount of support to help them think more deeply or become more

  • symbolic in their play. And what we found are those good-fit play interactions were

  • associated with increases in mathematical thinking. This is the most exciting finding,

  • at least to me as a play researcher. Teachers' interactions support play itself, and then

  • subsequent gains in children's play ability will support cognitive development, intellectual

  • development and that includes mathematical thinking.

  • >> DR. SWAMINATHAN: Research in cognitive science talks about how when you articulate

  • your problems, then you are actually seeking out a solution, and your mind starts to put

  • the verbal parts into a solution pattern. So this was interesting to see that connection in the preschool area.

  • >> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: The study suggests that teachers have a role to play in this process, that

  • they, through their interactions, can really support higher levels of mathematical thinking.

  • And the best way that they're able to do this is through interactions that support

  • play itself that really help children to play in more complex or symbolic ways.

  • >> JENNY WOLFF: The most interesting thing was the amount of mathematical knowledge that

  • the children actually have and the ability for these teachers to bring that out through

  • their questions and their scaffolding.

  • >> Teacher: Do you know what number this is? There's a four and a one.

  • >> Child: Forty. >> Teacher: Forty one!

  • >> JENNY WOLFF: I think that there's times when we really underestimate the abilities of preschoolers

  • and children in general and to see these children understanding that you can measure these objects

  • and compare objects at age 3, 4, and 5 was amazing to me.

  • >> CLAIRE FRYER: The whole experience of the study in general was experience most teachers

  • don't usually get. And I think that all of that will influence how I will become a teacher

  • and how I treat my children in the classroom. And things that I can incorporate.

  • >> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: Our finding supports the theory that language is really important

  • in learning and that play is useful. And it goes beyond just supporting social and emotional

  • development; that play also contributes to intellectual development and even academic learning.

  • [music]

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