- Title
- Integrating music and mathematics for connecting across multiple constructs of fractional understanding: an RME task design journey
- Creator
- Lovemore, Tarryn Shirley
- Subject
- Communities of practice
- Subject
- Interdisciplinary approach in education
- Subject
- Fractions
- Subject
- Mathematics Study and teaching
- Subject
- Music in mathematics education
- Subject
- Number line
- Date Issued
- 2023-03-29
- Date
- 2023-03-29
- Type
- Academic theses
- Type
- Doctoral theses
- Type
- text
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/366200
- Identifier
- vital:65842
- Identifier
- DOI https://doi.org/10.21504/10962/366200
- Description
- Two South African curricular aims: appreciating creativity in mathematics and developing conceptual understanding, motivated this study. Negative views towards mathematics and challenges in teaching and learning fractions at primary school level are reported in literature, with the part-whole construct of fractions often the sole teaching focus. Despite challenges in curriculum integration (high demands on teachers and diluting disciplines), benefits, such as motivation and creative thinking, are noted. I recognised music-mathematics integration as an opportune context for designing tasks to support learners in moving flexibly between the fraction as ratio, fraction as measure and part-whole constructs. Guided by Realistic Mathematics Education principles, I embarked on a participatory dual-design experiment in task design, grappling within three micro-Communities of Practice (micro-CoPs) and across two planes: the Design-Theorising Plane and the Grounded-Practice Plane. In the Design-Theorising Plane, I worked with my two doctoral supervisors, grappling with design obstacles and finding resolutions. COVID-19 restrictions shifted our meetings to online platforms, allowing documentation and analysis of the task design process through recording functions. In the Grounded-Practice Plane, I worked within two separate micro-CoPs, both at independent schools (eight and two participating teachers respectively). Data on the teachers’ interrogation and implementation of the designed tasks were obtained via formal and informal interviews. Their reflections informed ongoing adaptations to the task design. Data were analysed in a matrix I designed and via NVivo coding. Findings include both the product of the task design journey (eight music-mathematics lessons, resources, and representations) and the process (ten groupings of Obstacle-Resolution Cycles). Three key questions (relating to music-mathematics fidelity; to task simplification for implementation; and to appropriate music-mathematics representation) were used in addressing each Obstacle-Resolution Cycle. Designing tasks to teach the part-whole construct of fractions was relatively straightforward, but designing tasks to teach the fraction as ratio and fraction as measure constructs was more challenging. These constructs could not be conflated by superimposing the music and mathematical linear representations. Aligning them, however, allowed for moving flexibly between the constructs. The teachers reported that the integrated music-mathematics tasks and supporting resources enhanced their learners’ fractional problem-solving abilities, simultaneously promoting more positive learner dispositions towards mathematics.
- Description
- Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2023
- Format
- computer
- Format
- online resource
- Format
- application/pdf
- Format
- 1 online resource (277 pages)
- Format
- Publisher
- Rhodes University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Education, Education
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Lovemore, Tarryn Shirley
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike" License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/)
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
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| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | LOVEMORE-PHD-TR23-03.pdf | 4 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |