Three educator actions to challenge and support English Learners with equivalence: maintain the challenge, structure activity, and draw attention to approaches¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The brief recommends three specific actions. First, "Maintain the Challenge and Allow Language to Develop," since English Learners are fully capable of engaging with these ideas and language is not a prerequisite. Second, structure activities in terms of grouping, structure, and language so students can share, describe, and respond to their developing notions of equivalence. Third, draw attention to diverse approaches to equivalence so all student ideas are valued, using students' own language such as related to the same or can move one into the other.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Educators should listen carefully to students' reasoning so various perspectives can be discussed and honored in the classroom

Constraints¶

• Teachers do not need to share the categories of reasoning with students, nor do students need to be able to classify their reasoning

Target Learners¶

• secondary English Learners in mathematics

Target Learning Goals¶

• reasoning about equivalence while developing academic language

Related Strategies¶

• Concrete actions for mathematics educators: focus on ideas over words, engage students in defining early, connect multiple representations, extend to formal definitions, and nurture the genre of definition

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Haiwen Chu, Brent Jackson. (2024). Engaging English Learners With Equivalence as a Crosscutting Concept in Mathematics. WestEd. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED671702