IMPROVING STUDENT VOCABULARY IN AN URBAN MATHEMATICS CLASSROOM

Equation or Expression: Improving Student Vocabulary in an Urban Mathematics Classroom

Nathalie Metz

Manhattan College
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Abstract

I observed two Algebra 2 Honors classes for multiple weeks at Bronx High School of

Science. The students I observed are highly motivated and dedicated in their classes. My

cooperating teacher, Jennifer Pedraza, uses an inquiry-based learning technique with her

students. Through talking with Pedraza and observing the class for myself, I noticed that students

had a hard time explaining themselves. From what I saw, most of her students understood the

logic of the problem but did not use the vocabulary correctly. So even if they arrived at the

correct answer, they could not always express in words what they were thinking. My plan for

improving these student’s vocabulary was to first give a vocabulary “quiz” to get baseline data

for how well these students understood the vocabulary for this class. Then from there we would

give students as many opportunities to use the vocabulary themselves as possible. Those

opportunities included continuing to encourage partner sharing and class presentations, in

addition to adding a vocabulary question to their homework each night. In this fast-moving class,

there is not time to stop and dedicate a whole day to vocabulary thus, it was determined that

student mistakes would be corrected as they happened in class.

Keywords: Mathematics Vocabulary, Inquiry-based Learning, Algebra 2 Honors,

motivated students
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Equation or Expression: Improving Student Vocabulary in an Urban Mathematics Classroom

What was the Problem?

At Bronx High School of Science and particularly in honors classes, the students are

highly motivated by good grades. Students want to be given the steps to find the right answer,

and most put little emphasis on knowing why to take those steps. I observed Pedraza in her

honors algebra 2 class for multiple weeks. She had taught regular algebra 2 for many years

before starting to teach honors algebra 2 this year. We had discussed her observations that her

honors students do not ask as many questions her non-honors students did. In most cases, they

just accept what she is teaching them and do not take the time to question her teachings unlike

the non-honors students. When students put little emphasis on conceptualizing the material, they

are not taking the time to learn the mathematical vocabulary. Pedraza also mentioned that many

of her students’ struggle explaining a problem to the class. They were able to solve it perfectly

and obtain the right answer but are not always capable to clearly explain what they did and why.

She is correcting them in their use of vocabulary all the time. Understanding material in

mathematics is not based on being able to produce the correct answer but clearing explaining

how and why you were able to get to the correct answer. These students are dedicated learners,

Pedraza mentioned if the students knew she wanted their focus on something, they would work

hard to master it. Thus, more emphasis needs to place on the importance of vocabulary, which

will lead to students more fully understanding the concept.

What Had Others Found?

vocabulary in mathematics is abstract and completely new for the student. Even when there is a

word used commonly in the English language it usually has a completely different meaning in a

mathematical context. Students need to observe how to use mathematical vocabulary in context

in order to fully understand it (Monroe, 2002). Along with most things in life, people learn by

having the task modeled for them first. Students need to be given the opportunity to hear their

teacher and peers use vocabulary in the correct context to gain a better understanding for it. That

is why encouraging partner sharing, as well as student presentations is very important. It is

critical to give the students as many opportunities to practice mathematical discourse in the

classroom as possible. Another reason an inquiry-based classroom in important for learning

mathematics is that students need to participate in the math discourse in order to conceptualize

the material better (Wachira et al., 2013). Wachira’s study follows one high school mathematics

teacher that implemented a more collaboration-based classroom and found that it he was able to

change the mathematical dispositions of his students. This process engages students and helps

them build a deeper understanding of the mathematics they are learning. Understanding how to

use the vocabulary and conceptualizing of the material go hand in hand. If you want students to

understand the concept you need to give them the time to talk through it themselves. Quiet

students are memorizing steps, while talking students are fully engaging with the content.

Riccomini et al. and Kovarik both discussed the idea that students need multiple exposures to the

vocabulary word in order to retain it (Riccomini et al., 2015) (Kovarik, 2010). This is why the

main purpose of my plan in to create as many opportunities as I could to let students interact with

the vocabulary. Students are being given ample opportunities to practice vocabulary use verbally,

but how can we perfect it in the written form? This plan details how to add a vocabulary question
IMPROVING STUDENT VOCABULARY IN AN URBAN MATHEMATICS CLASSROOM
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to their homework to give them other facets to interact with the vocabulary word. The more

times we can have students thinking about the vocabulary word the better they are going to

understand the material.

What was the Plan?

I had observed these students the previous year so when I started observing again this

year, I was familiar with how this class functions. For the first couple of weeks I observed the

students and talked to Pedraza about things that could be improved in their classroom. I decided

to work on improving students understanding and use of mathematical vocabulary. To set the

base level I gave students a seven-question vocabulary quiz to gage their understanding. (Figure

1) Before giving the students the quiz, I told them that this was not going to be graded but I just

wanted to see how well they understood the vocabulary. As stated before, these students care a

lot about their grade, and I did not want to raise their anxiety about a pop quiz that could

potentially damage their average. The instructions were simply to write the best definition of the

given vocabulary word they could come up with. To grade their answers, I consulted Pedraza on

what she expected her students to know at this level. I put the results in bar graph that gave the

percentage of students that did not put a sufficient definition. (Figure 2) The results surprised me;

I am always so impressed by what these students produce that I thought they would do much

better than they did. Period 1 usually performs much better academically then period 2 but there

is no sign of that from this vocabulary quiz. The first six vocabulary words were common words

that had been used all year, while the last vocabulary word, Pythagorean, was from the unit they

were working on at that time. It was clear that the student needed help improving their

vocabulary when 40% of the students from period 2 were not able to give a sufficient definition

of a word they had been using every day for the past couple of weeks.
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After the quiz, the plan was to start adding a vocabulary question at the end of their

homework each night. The questions would be very similar to the quiz, just exploring a

vocabulary word each night. This might look different on every single homework, because there

are some units when vocabulary is light, and you will need to maybe use a word from a previous

lesson. There will also be units where there are so many vocabulary words that you might ask

them to write a little paragraph using as many of the unit words as they can. The purpose of this

is not only to give students as much exposure to the vocabulary words as possible but also giving

them different facets to explore them in. Usually in class, they are just asked to interact with

these words verbally but now we will introduce these words in writing.

I also wanted to continue to correcting student’s vocabulary mistakes when listening to

their conversations with their partner as well as when they are presenting for the class. It is

important to not let student’s mistakes slide just because they obtained the correct answer. Being

able to clearly explain what you are doing and why is just as important as just getting the right

answer. This is not meant to be a dramatic correction, it is as simple as “I don’t think that’s what

you meant, try saying that again.” or “You are close, can you explain that last step again?” These

corrections are done quickly and in the moment.

After a couple weeks of implementing these methods, I planned to give the students

another vocabulary quiz, using different words from the baseline one, to see if there were any

improvements in the overall scores. These students are incredibly dedicated, and I believe that

drawing their attention to improving their use of vocabulary would motivate them to spend a

little more time concentrating on it.

Kovarik, M. (2010). Building Mathematics Vocabulary. International Journal for Mathematics

Monroe, E. E., & Orme, M. P. (2002). Developing mathematical vocabulary. Preventing school

Riccomini, P. J., Smith, G. W., Hughes, E. M., & Fries, K. M. (2015). The language of
mathematics: The importance of teaching and learning mathematical vocabulary. Reading &
Writing Quarterly, 31(3), 235-252.

Wachira, P., Pourdavood, R. G., & Skitzki, R. (2013). Mathematics Teacher's Role in Promoting
Classroom Discourse. International Journal for Mathematics Teaching & Learning.
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Figure 1: Vocabulary “Quiz”

Figure 2: Results of Vocabulary Quiz

Percentage of Students that did not know the Vocaulary Word

40%

35%

30%

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%
Identity Evaulate Derive Solve Equation Expression Pythagorean

Period 1 Period 2