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Fostering Mathematical Identities

Katherine Olsen

ED227S Inquiry Paper

April 24, 2021

Dr. Shelly Furuness

Butler University
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Fostering Mathematical Identities
Abstract

The overarching topic of this research paper is what it looks like when educators create

developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive conditions for learners to become

independent. To look at this topic from a mathematical teaching standpoint, I decided to focus on

discovering practices math teachers can implement to help students to shape their mathematical

identities, develop academic mindsets, engage in productive struggle, and become independent

learners. My observations consisted of watching and analyzing six movies. The claims I

conclude with as a result of my observations are that raising the expectations a teacher has of his

or her students increases engagement and achievement, the ability to persist in the face of

struggle—whether that be in the classroom or not—should be enhanced through regularly having

students engage in productive struggle, the classroom should be seen as a safe, caring, and

welcoming environment so that students are willing to take risks and achieve their intellectual

potential, and helping students to counter the negative narrative they may come in the class with

about their identity as learners and replacing it with a growth mindset leads to confidence and

enjoyment of the subject. The articles I read supplement these claims well and give many

practical teaching practices to help implement them, such as allowing adequate time for students

to struggle productively and persevere, asking probing questions, making connections between

material clear, learning through exploration instead of through lecture and memorization, having

students justify their work, and using technology as a tool to meet the unique and diverse needs

of the students.
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Fostering Mathematical Identities
Introduction

I chose my inquiry question because I’ve noticed that the way people talk about math
education reflects the negative view they have of their experiences. It is so common to hear
someone say “I hate math,” or “I’m just not a math person,” and when I tell someone my major,
they almost always express disbelief, not understanding why I would choose to make a career out
of the subject. This negative view on math is so sad to me, since I really believe that every math
class throughout middle and high school can be useful and relevant to all students, regardless of
what they want to do in their future. It seems to me that the way we teach math needs to change
so that students aren’t traumatized by what they perceive to be abstract, meaningless numbers
and formulas, but instead see a problem and feel confident in their ability to solve it. There are
too many people coming out of the education system with an intense hatred of mathematics,
which shows that the beauty and interconnectedness of the subject is not being communicated,
and mathematical identities are not being cultivated. When students don’t have strong, positive
mathematical identities and academic mindsets, they don’t think for themselves, instead
depending on their teacher every step of the way. They reach a difficult problem that doesn’t fit
the same format of procedures they’ve memorized and, because of their heavy reliance on the
teacher, have no way of confronting the challenge and working through it. Students instead
become frustrated, which feeds into their belief that they are incapable or don’t contain the skills
necessary, which is where fixed mindsets and hatred of math grows. Knowing how the spiral
winds and leaves students feeling more and more incapable and unhappy as they go through their
math classes, my question is, how do we interrupt this spiral? How can we help students to
become independent learners and engage in productive struggle so that they have the confidence
and excitement in their mathematics that so many students miss out on? To put these ideas into
one big question, my research reflects investigations on this question: How can I help my future
students to shape their mathematical identities, develop an academic mindset, and engage in
productive struggle without depending on me every step of the way?

Literature Review

To start, I want to focus on specific teaching practices I read about in my article research
that are developmentally appropriate. The article, “Productive struggle in middle school
mathematics classrooms,” talks about how struggling to make sense of mathematics is how real
learning and understanding is achieved, and such a struggle should be challenging but fall within
the students’ reasonable capabilities(Warshauer, 2014). This means that it should be balanced in
a way that makes it achievable independent of major teacher intervention, but still involves deep
thought and problem solving skills. This ties into Lev Vygotsky’s notion of Zone of Proximal
Development, which suggests that students learn best just beyond their existing level of
knowledge. Teachers act as the “more knowledgeable other” to bridge the gap between what
students can do independently and what he or she can do with the assistance of another person.
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So many examples Warshauer gave in his article depicted settings where students were working
on a problem cooperatively, or where teachers support individual work in a way that “bridges”
the gap in understanding in a way that doesn’t take away from the cognitive demand of the task,
which is precisely what Vygotsky’s theory is all about.

I also read that it is more developmentally appropriate for students to focus on conceptual
thinking rather than memorization of facts and procedures(Boaler, 2020). Students should be in
the habit of justifying their work so that the meaning behind procedures isn’t being lost. Asking
good questions and discussing multiple approaches to attacking and solving a problem allows
students to view an idea from different angles so that they can reach a deep understanding and be
supported if traditional styles of learning aren’t helpful. By shedding light to relationships
between concepts and giving multiple different representations of the same idea, the needs of
meaning and real understanding are met and varied learning modalities are supported. This idea
really connects to Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences. This theory recognizes
diversity in abilities and learning styles and highlights the importance of various components of
intelligence. While each person usually has one intelligence that they are most proficient in,
every individual has a unique blend of the intelligences, which means that when teachers include
lessons utilizing different types of activities that hit on each intelligence, such as multiple
representations of the same problem as mentioned previously, all students are benefited.

Additionally, the articles I read discussed many different behaviors educators can exhibit
to act culturally responsive. A major one that showed up more than once is the gift of
time(Whitney, 1987). So often, math classrooms are conducted in a relentless stream of
information and lectures. While students are given time in class to work through problems, they
usually are rushed and don’t have the opportunity to reach a satisfying conclusion. Because of
this, meaning gets lost and students tend to just scratch the surface of the productive struggle that
leads to learning and growth(Warshauer, 2014). Additionally, every student learns at a different
pace, and that reality should be respected and supported. The fact that the speed at which
someone completes a problem is not a reflection of their intelligence or potential as learners
should be well communicated so that no child feels embarrassed or experiences math anxiety.
This goes into the idea of creating a risk-free environment where students can gain confidence in
their mathematical abilities instead of fearing failure(Gweshe & Brodie, 2019). Mistakes should
be viewed as learning opportunities so that students are more willing to take risks and engage.

Everything that goes into making a classroom risk-free relates to the idea of the
classroom as a welcoming community of learners. This is exactly what Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs theory speaks on, which is a five tier model of human needs. The first two levels are
known as basic needs, the next two physiological needs, and the final is self-fulfillment needs.
Maslow argues that you need to have the bottom level needs met before you can progress to meet
the needs higher in the pyramid. When applying this theory to the school, students need to feel
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Fostering Mathematical Identities
emotionally and physically safe and accepted in the classroom before their cognitive needs can
be met, which can be accomplished when the teacher creates a supportive, growth-mindset
focused classroom. Lastly, as mentioned previously, one of the most important culturally
responsive behaviors that math educators could exhibit is not relying so heavily on lecture as a
means of communicating content(Whitney, 1987). Research has shown that many students,
especially students of varying cultural backgrounds, benefit more from hands-on learning,
working in groups to collaborate, visual representations, and other, less traditional ways of
learning. So, by implementing different representations, group work, etc., educators would not
only be culturally responsive to the identities of the students in their classroom, but be acting in a
way that is developmentally appropriate(Yushau et al., 2005).

Now, to dive into my sub-questions more fully, the first big topic I researched explored
the idea of shaping students’ mathematical identities. The article “Developing Mathematical
Mindsets” talked about how we are all natural mathematics users and thinkers, but school
mathematics has served to damage and diminish our joy and fascination of patterns and numbers
by introducing methods to be memorized and rules and instructions to follow. Educators need to
help grow students’ mathematical mindsets so that they see math as a subject of growth where
they can learn and think about new ideas with confidence in their ability. This means that math
should be taught as a flexible conceptual subject, as a broad landscape of unexplored puzzles for
them to explore, asking questions and thinking about relationships. This conceptual thinking in
contrast to a memorization is how students can find genuine enjoyment in math, learn to a deeper
level of understanding, avoid math anxiety, grow in confidence, and develop number sense and a
mathematical mindset(Boaler, 2020). Another article, “High School Learner’s Mathematical
Identities,” also talks about the flaws in our current math classrooms, where a common belief for
many middle and high school math learners is that mathematics is irrelevant and boring, as well
as a strong fear and dislike of the subject, which indicates fragile mathematical identities and
fixed mindsets. It goes on to discuss how mathematical identities are influenced by past and
present mathematical experiences, what family members and peers say about the learners and
about mathematics, career opportunities associated with math, and pleasing others and gaining
prestige. Robust mathematical identities can be fostered through teaching strategies that show
math as creative, useful for more than career opportunities, and fun(Gweshe & Brodie, 2019).

Another subpoint of my inquiry question is the idea of independent learners. Because


students’ mathematical identities are so often weak and uncultivated, the article, “Coming Alive
To School Math and Beyond,” states that their attention is solely on the teacher’s words and
thoughts instead of his or her own, which causes meaning to get lost and students to be trained to
depend on their teachers for everything. Instead of restricting students’ growth in this way,
teachers need to give them freedom to explore, sufficient thinking time, and a sense of
responsibility over their own learning. This means that understanding comes first, then properties
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are well grasped and student discussion follows. By allowing students to explore the math they
are learning and try to make sense of it for themselves first, they are able to think for themselves
instead of depending on teachers to do everything for them(Whitney, 1987).

The article, “The role of technology in fostering creativity in the teaching and learning of
mathematics,” focused on technology's role in the classroom in shaping independent and creative
learners. In the school system as it is currently, mathematical creative thinking appears to
steadily decline as students grow older, and a way to combat this is to encourage exploration and
provide opportunities and an atmosphere for free expression. Fostering creativity can be most
efficiently and effectively accomplished through technology, since it allows visualisation and the
possibility of multiple senses being engaged for a single concept or problem, which yields more
understanding and retention. Technology also allows students a more self-reliant role in their
education and accommodates learners with different learning styles so that everyone benefits
from instruction and time is used well(Yushau et al., 2005).

Lastly, the final article I read, “Productive struggle in middle school mathematics
classrooms” provided a lot of really good information on how to engage students in productive
struggle. It talked about how struggling to make sense of mathematics is a necessary component
of learning math with understanding, and teachers should support this struggle in ways that
maintain the cognitive demand of the task, address the struggle, and build on students’ thinking
in order to guide the students. Ways for teachers to help students engage in a process of inquiry
and sense-making are to first create settings that are risk-free (where “wrong” answers are not
seen as failures but opportunities to explore, grow, and learn), implement high-level, meaningful,
and appropriate tasks for students to engage in where opportunities are given for students to
make sense of important ideas in math and see connections among these ideas, respond to
struggle with examples that connect to prior knowledge, ask probing questions, and expose and
discuss errors and misconceptions as a source of learning. High expectations should be the
established norm of a class, as well as an awareness of struggle being a natural and good part of
learning(Warshauer, 2014). This article communicates well what productive struggle is, how
teachers can create opportunities for students to engage in productive struggle in a meaningful
way, and what not to do when a student asks for help.

Method

I collected my data from 6 different movies. I watched Lean On Me, Freedom Writers,
Stand and Deliver, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Dangerous Minds, and The Dead Poet’s Society. Each of
these movies have different examples of teachers and education leaders creating a community of
learners where students grow and engage. While watching each movie, I looked for ways that
teachers displayed trust generator behavior, earned the right to demand, and developed the
academic mindset of their students. My annotated bibliography touched on similar ideas of
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helping students grow an academic mindset through perseverance and taking ownership of their
learning. Another huge aspect of an academic mindset that I looked at throughout all the movies
I watched was the idea of helping students create a “counter narrative” about their identity as
learners. Learners’ identity was thoroughly discussed in the articles I read, where they talked
about how math should be seen as interesting, creative, and fun. Many of the educators I
observed in the movies found unique ways to do just that for their various subjects. The trust
generator behaviors that I analyzed in my observations were also evident in the readings I found,
where that theme of creating a risk-free, welcoming environment for students to build
community in was prevalent. The most helpful movies I watched were Stand and Deliver and
Freedom Writers. Stand and Deliver was about a Calculus class, so it directly relates to my
content area, and Freedom Writers gave great examples of a community forming within a
classroom and students really connecting with the course content.

Findings and Implications

There were many themes in my observations of what I saw done well by teachers. To
start, every teacher evidently cared deeply about their students and had strong relationships with
them, which helped to create a safe environment where student learning and understanding could
flourish. In Dead Poets Society, Mr. Keating pushes Todd to find his voice and the poet within
himself. When he assigned his students the task of writing a poem to read outloud to the class, he
openly stated that he was aware of how terrifying this must be for Todd. I believe it was his
concern for Todd that led him to challenge him in this way; he knew that doing things that are
hard and scary would allow Todd to grow and reach his potential. To go easy on him by not
having him do the assignment or not having to read to the class would’ve been a disservice to
Todd. Freedom Writers gives another example of this. The students in Ms. Gruwell’s class were
all of different ethnicities from different gangs who hated each other. They were so focused on
the conflicts going on outside of school between their different groups that Ms. Gruwell’s
attempts to teach them remained fruitless for some time. Eventually, she has them play the ‘line
game,’ where she asks a question and everyone who answered yes to the question would walk up
to the line in the middle of the room. Through this activity, where many of the questions were
personal, the students in her class were able to see how similar they were to each other for the
first time. From there, the class became more comfortable sharing their stories and connecting
with each other, to where one student says, “I know that when I am in room 203, I am home.” At
the same time that they are writing more and growing closer as a class, they also were reading
more difficult texts and learning a lot, which goes to show how having a safe, welcoming
environment coincides with academic growth. Mr. Escalante and Ms Johnson in Stand and
Deliver and Dangerous Minds found ways to connect with their students and establish trust and
rapport within a community of learning by including the students’ families in their educational
journey. After Raul gets suspended for getting into a fight at school, Ms. Johnson goes to his
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home and tells his parents, “I’m here because I just wanted to tell you both personally what a
pleasure it’s been having Raul in my class this semester. You must be very proud. He’s very
bright, funny, articulate, and the truth is, he’s one of my favorites.” When Ana says that she is
dropping out because her father wants her to, Mr. Escalante visits the restaurant where she works
and has a talk with her dad. In both these examples, the teachers very evidently care about their
students and their education to a point where they choose to enter into their world to bring the
family into the conversation. The teachers in my final two movies, Lean on Me and Mr.
Holland’s Opus, were constantly seen checking in on their students and going beyond the
classroom to ensure that everyone felt valued and comfortable. Because of how obvious it was in
all these examples that their teachers valued them immensely and were incredibly passionate
about helping them succeed and care about the class, the students grew to see their classes as
meaningful and achieve more than they thought possible.

Another theme I noticed was the teachers in all the movies working to change their
students’ perceptions of themselves, which led to increased confidence and genuine enjoyment
of the class. Mr. Clark says to his school, “You are not inferior. Your grades may be. Your school
may have been. But you can turn all that around.” Ms Johnson says, “You know how to run but
not the way you could run if you trained. The mind is like a muscle, and if you want it to be
really powerful you have to work it out. Each new fact gives you another choice, each new idea
builds another muscle, and it’s those muscles that are going to make you really strong. Those are
your weapons. In this unsafe world I want to arm you.” Along these same lines, Mr Escalante
tells his class, “People will assume you know less than you do because of your name and
complexion,” and then went on to prove this assumption wrong by showing his students just how
capable they are. As another example, when Todd doesn’t do his poetry assignment, Mr. Keating
says, “Mr. Anderson thinks that everything inside him is worthless and embarrassing, isn’t that
right, Todd? Well I think you’re wrong. I think you have something inside of you that is worth a
great deal.” In Ms Gruwell’s class, she says in her “toast for change,” “Every voice that told you
you can’t is silenced, every reason that tells you things will never change disappears, and the
person you were before this moment, that person’s turn is over. Now it’s your turn.” All these
“pep talks” sprinkled throughout the movies were ways for the teachers in the movies to cut off
their students’ thinking when it became negative and redirect it to the realities of their potential
and ability. As a result, in each movie, students began to become invested in the work they were
doing in class, choosing to identify with the content and confidently work hard, recognizing that
they had control over their own success.

Additionally, all my observations supported the claim that raising the expectations a
teacher has of his or her students increases engagement and achievement. The students Ms.
Johnson had in her class were only expected to learn nouns and verbs and other low-level
literature content, but Ms. Johnson started to challenge them to do more and more complex
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poetry and reading to where they ended studying poems that were taught in college classrooms.
Mr. Clark was able to bring the percentage of students passing the basic skills test up from 30%
to over 70% in just a year by enforcing discipline and responsibility in the students and school.
Ms. Gruwell took her students from reading picture books to the Diary of Anne Frank and other
novels, again through holding them to higher standards than any previous teacher had done. Mr.
Escalante says it best when he says, “Students will rise to the level of expectation,” and proves
this correct when every one of his students passes the AP Calculus exam after a year of him
challenging them again and again in their intellectual capabilities. In all these examples, it
wasn’t just that students began to perform better under the influence of teachers who pushed
them harder, but they also were shown to be deeply interested in what they were learning and
voluntarily participating.

Lastly, the theme of perseverance kept popping up throughout my observations, whether


that be through challenging school work or home life struggles, and the practice the teachers
gave their students in engaging in productive struggle was shown helping them to persist in all
situations of difficulties and setbacks. In Stand and Deliver, Mr. Escalante and his students spent
time during class, before and after school, and over the summer catching themselves up on the
material for the AP Calc test. All their hard work required a lot of effort and perseverance, since
the content was challenging and the students had never done anything to that level before.There
was one scene where Pancho is trying to solve a problem on the board and desperately wants Mr.
Escalante to do it for him when he gets stuck. Instead of allowing him to depend on him in that
way, Mr. Escalante guides his thinking in a way that helps him to struggle productively with the
problem. Because of the significant amount of practice in persistence that the class was exposed
to throughout their time with Mr. Escalante, when they are accused of cheating and have to
retake the test with only one day to study, they all accepted the difficulty they faced and got to
work. This shows how the class had learned how to persist in ways other than just working
through a math problem. As another example, Ms Gruwell had students in her class who faced
setbacks daily. There is Andre with his brother in prison, Marcus living homeless, Eva getting
kicked out of her gang, and other students dealing with abuse and death. Ms. Gruwell provided
her students with a pen and paper to communicate their setbacks and hardship, books to give
them a glimpse into the lives of other people who had difficulties similar to their own, and
experiences to allow them to dig even deeper. So while her students weren’t exactly engaging in
productive struggle in the same way Pancho was in Stand and Deliver, they were still given the
tools necessary to face hardships in life inside and outside of the classroom. Additionally, in Ms.
Johnson’s class, much of the material she gave her students talked about not giving in to
hardships. The class would openly discuss various poems that they studied and struggle together
to discover what was being communicated. At one point during a class discussion, Raul called
out an answer and another student immediately told him he was wrong and stupid. Ms. Johnson
responds to this by saying, “Sometimes it takes a lot of wrong answers to get to the right
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answer.” Clearly, the productive struggle in this movie looks a lot different than what productive
struggle in a math context looks like, but nevertheless, through engaging in the struggle, learning
about perseverance, and recognizing the value in wrong answers, the class as a whole learned
how to better persist through setbacks. This was seen when Cali got pregnant but decided to
continue her education, and when Emilio is killed and the whole class has to figure out how to
get past their grief.

Having recognized these major themes seen in teaching done well, the articles I read help
to move one step further into practical ways to act out such behaviors. To start, something
teachers should do to create a caring and comfortable classroom for all students is establish the
fact that mistakes are not failures, but rather opportunities to explore, grow, and learn, and the
speed in which someone is able to solve a problem is not a reflection of their intelligence or
ability as a math learner(Boaler, 2020). This means that sufficient time should be granted to
students when taking tests or working on problems so that math anxiety is avoided and every
individual's best work is presented. By having these two views as rooted facts within the
classroom, students will feel more comfortable and willing to be bold and participate freely.
Another strategy for teachers to employ is using a variety of methods to communicate content,
not just relying on lectures every single day. Students will not feel as though their needs are
being met and that their teacher values them if they are constantly bored and being forced to
learn in a way that doesn’t work well for them. To ensure that every student’s specific learning
modalities are being recognized and supported, teachers can use technology as a tool to allow
visualization of abstract concepts, simulate ideas that are similar to real life situations, and
multimedia delivery. Multimedia merges text, graphics, audio, and video into one entity, making
it possible for learners to use many of their senses in one lesson. The more senses engaged in the
teaching and learning process, the more understanding and retention of knowledge is possible.
This brings about the possibility of accommodating many learners with different learning styles
in an unprecedented way, therefore making mathematics more meaningful and
interesting(Yushau et al., 2005).

Specific ways to help shift students’ perception of themselves as learners and develop
growth mindsets is to allow them to explore the mathematics they are doing before formally
learning procedures and rules about it. When students are given the space to discover
mathematical truths for themselves, they gain a sense of responsibility over their learning which
strengthens their mathematical identity and perception of the subject(Whitney, 1987). This
allows conceptualization instead of memorization, greater interest in the topic, and prevents
meaning from getting lost. Conceptualization can be reached through the understanding of
numerical relations, which are achieved by thinking about number strategies. An example of
learning math facts through strategies versus through memorization can be seen in the problem
17x8. Approaching this through strategies, you could work out 17x10=170 and subtract
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17x2=34, which displays a clear understanding of how numbers relate to each other and how
one can simplify a problem easily. The approach of memorization of facts would require
committing to memory that 17x8=136. Studies have found that learning through strategies
achieved “superior performance” over those who memorized, and caused greater engagement
and retention. This number sense that the example illustrates is the foundation for all
higher-level mathematics, and the conceptualization it fosters in students allows them more
confidence and enjoyment in their mathematical learning(Boaler, 2020).

The articles I read additionally had a lot of information supporting my claim of the
importance of maintaining high expectations for all students. I believe that high expectations are
very related to the idea behind productive struggle. Instead of giving students problems that ask
them to replicate a procedure again and again with no real thought behind what they are doing
and why, productive struggle raises the bar higher and challenges students. So, by implementing
problems where students engage in productive struggle, teachers are holding them to higher
expectations and therefore helping them to reach their potential as learners. Ways to create a
space and opportunity for students to struggle productively is first to establish a risk-free
environment. Teachers should then make sure that the problem chosen for students to work on is
challenging but falls within the students’ reasonable capabilities. High-level tasks do not
guarantee high-level student engagement, but low-level tasks almost never result in high-level
engagement(Warshauer, 2014). Since the problem is meant to be grappled with and not easily
solved, it is natural for students to ask for help and guidance if they get stuck at a certain point.
This is where it is the teacher’s responsibility to meet the delicate balance of helping the student
get past their current confusion without lowering the demand of the task so that they still need
to struggle with it. This can be done by asking probing questions to direct thinking and help
them organize their thoughts. Additionally, probing questions can be used to have students
justify their thinking so that they understand what they are trying to accomplish more
conceptually. Another way to support students in their struggle is to connect back to prior
knowledge, which also gives them the big picture of the interconnectedness of mathematics.
Productive struggle is exactly what leads to persistence in learners, which is what my last claim
is all about. (Warshauer, 2014).

Conclusion

While my research covers many different spectrums, they all connect to the idea of
changing how students see themselves in relation to learning and supporting them in a way that
best allows them to reach their potential. My observations and the articles I read just scratch the
surface of all there is to know about productive struggle, mathematical identities, academic
mindsets, and developing independence in learners, but I believe that all the overlap in my
findings from all the different sources has helped me to clearly see what teacher practices I
should be sure to implement in my future classroom. These include creating a welcoming and
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risk-free environment, giving students sufficient time, fostering perseverance and confidence
through productive struggle, asking probing questions, connecting to prior knowledge, having
students practice justifying their thinking, holding high expectations, utilizing technology as a
tool to allow students to take ownership of their learning and meet diverse needs, and constantly
reminding students of their ability and growth to counter the narrative they have about
themselves as math learners. Since all my findings come from words on a paper or Hollywood
movies, I think the next step would be to watch real life teachers displaying these behaviors,
whether that be through videos or in person. Future questions I could look at from here could
focus on each of my sub points individually to find more specific behaviors teachers could
practice to better serve their students.
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Works Cited

Boaler. (2020, September 10). Developing mathematical mindsets. Retrieved April 03, 2021,

from https://www.aft.org/ae/winter2018-2019/boaler

Gweshe, L. C., & Brodie, K. (2019). High school learners’ mathematical identities. African

Journal of Research in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 23(2), 254-262.

doi:10.1080/18117295.2019.1662642

Warshauer, H. K. (2014). Productive struggle in middle school mathematics classrooms. Journal

of Mathematics Teacher Education, 18(4), 375-400. doi:10.1007/s10857-014-9286-3

Whitney, H. (1987). Coming Alive in School Math and beyond. Educational Studies in

Mathematics, 18(3), 229-242. Retrieved March 28, 2021, from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3482607

Yushau, B., Mji, A., & Wessels, D. (2005). The role of technology in fostering creativity in the

teaching and learning of mathematics. Pythagoras, 0(62), 12-22.

doi:https://doi.org/10.4102/pythagoras.v0i62.110

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