Lisa Björklund Boistrup

The Role of Conceptual Subitising in the Development of Foundational Number Sense

Evidence indicates that children with a well-developed number sense are more likely to experience long-term mathematical success than children without. However, number sense has remained an elusive construct. In this chapter, we summarise the development of an eight-dimensional framework categorising what we have come to call foundational number sense or those non-innate number-related competences typically taught during the first years of schooling. We also show, drawing on grade one lessons from Hungary and Sweden, how focused instruction on conceptual subitising, the teaching of children to identify and use easily recognisable groups of objects to structure children’s understanding of number, facilitates children’s acquisition of a range of foundational number sense-related competences.

A categorisation of teacher feedback in the classroom: a field study on feedback based on routine classroom assessment in primary school

Abstract The aim of the present study was to examine and categorise teachers’ strategies for feedback in day-to-day communication in primary school. The different feedback categories constructed and grounded in data are applicable to feedback on learning and knowledge as well as on behavioural skills. Qualitative classroom observations were conducted in 4 primary school classrooms, including a total of 4 teachers and 75 students. A constructivist grounded theory approach was used throughout the analytical process. The analysis of the field data generated five main categories of feedback focuses: expecting, emotionally responding, normalising, steering and deliberating. The categories are all broad, yet with subcategories specific and nuanced, presenting concepts by which we can verbalise and communicate teachers’ feedback strategies. The categories place teachers’ feedback actions in a landscape, not on a linear axis. The complexity of feedback, as it is shown in the present study, challenges a dichotomisation of feedback and captures more of a complexity of classroom assessment.

Assessment in Mathematics Education: A Gatekeeping Dispositive

This chapter aims at shedding light on a governing assessment dispositive in mathematics education, which effects that some students are provided with affordances to learn and engage in mathematics, while others are not. Through such a dispositive, the system of school is governing the act of gatekeeping and selection of students, which is contradictory to what is stated in official documents. While drawing on findings from previous classroom studies and action research, a tentative assessment dispositive is presented. It consists of different assessment discourses for students to experience, or not, affordances for learning mathematics; and regulatory decisions which affect assessment practices on classroom level. The purpose of presenting such a dispositive is twofold: (a) to contribute to an understanding of how such an assessment dispositive may look like; and (b) to provide a starting point for further research and discussions among teachers, students, and decision makers.

A qualitative study of primary teachers’ classroom feedback rationales

Abstract Background As part of teachers’ everyday classroom assessment practice, feedback can be seen as connected to the formative function of assessment, with the aim of helping students in their learning processes. Much research on teacher feedback focuses precisely on the feedback’s formative quality. However, in order to strengthen our understanding about the nature of teacher feedback, we also need to understand more about teachers’ rationales for giving feedback to their students, especially in primary school settings. Purpose The present study aimed to explore and conceptualise primary school teachers’ rationales for giving students feedback. Sample Thirteen Swedish primary school teachers ( 10 women and 3 men) with 4 to 40 years of teaching experience working with students aged 7–9 years-old (grades 1–3), participated in the study. An open sampling procedure was adopted to recruit the teachers. Design and methods Data were collected using a semi-structured interview approach. We employed a constructivist grounded theory design for the coding and analysis of the transcribed data. Results Analysis indicated that two main concerns emerged as regulating teachers’ assessment practices. These addressed what the teachers perceived as (1) students’ academic needs and (2) students’ behavioural and emotional needs. According to the findings, the teachers’ rationales for giving students feedback were based on those needs, and dependent on factors such as situation, relationships, time and effort. This resulted in a constant comparison and weighing of different needs by the teachers. Some needs were described as prioritised before others, which caused some rationales to be identified as taking precedence over others. Discussion and conclusions Based on a systematic analysis of – and thus grounded in – interview data from primary teachers, the current qualitative study offers a framework for surveying, understanding and discussing teacher feedback. Overall, the study showed how everyday practices of classroom assessment and classroom management overlapped, thus underlining the importance in teacher education of understanding classroom assessment, classroom management and the relationships between the two.