K-2 Mathematicians & Writers: Professional Learning Communities for Developing Conceptual Understanding

Abstract

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has long supported the use of children’s literature, writing, and manipulatives to improve conceptual understanding of mathematics (2000). In a professional learning community for K-2 teachers, professional development was designed and implemented on ways to incorporate literacy and manipulatives into a mathematics lesson. The teachers were charged with collaboratively planning lessons that included multiple components: the standard(s), a mathematics activity, manipulatives, a writing task, and children’s literature. As the data were analyzed, it became apparent that while most of the lessons were well connected, this did not happen for all of the lessons. In addition, we observed that there were cases of teacher misconceptions. We feel these misconceptions contributed to the lack of connectedness in some of the lessons.

Keywords

• professional development
• mathematics and literacy
• children’s literature
• writing
• integrated lesson
• k-2 teachers