K–2 Teachers’ Attempts to Connect Out-of-School Experiences to In-School Mathematics Learning

Abstract

In this article, the authors report on a 3-year professional development research project. The project focused in general on early mathematics teaching and learning in urban schools and in particular on promoting teachers’ awareness of the importance of making connections between students’ out-of-school experiences to promote deep understanding of K–2 school mathematics. Children cross into school spaces bringing with them a wide variety of out-of-school experiences; this is especially true in the early elementary grades when they have spent more of their lives out of school than in school. Effective teaching at this level requires that teachers put forth concerted efforts to make connections between these out-of-school experiences and formal curricular content. The authors present the strategies that participating teachers (n = 49) employed in their attempts to make such connections as well as implications for future professional development research.