Family Mathematics Nights: An Opportunity to Improve Preservice Teachers' Understanding of Parents' Roles and Expectations

Abstract

Providing preservice teachers with opportunities to engage with parents and begin to see them as collaborators in their children's education is a persistent challenge in mathematics methods courses and teacher preparation programs more broadly. We describe the use of family mathematics nights as a model for engaging parents and preservice teachers. These events helped preservice teachers feel more comfortable in working with parents, while also giving them a friendly space for learning more about parents, the ways they work with their children, and activities they do with their children. Incorporating surveys about parents' needs and suggestions for preservice teachers allowed us to use the results as a catalyst for fostering discussions around parent engagement later in the methods course.

Parents’ Attitudes Toward Mathematics and the Influence on Their Students’ Attitudes toward Mathematics: A Quantitative Study

“…We know early interest in STEM subjects, especially among middle school students, results in an increase desire to persist and persevere in mathematical tasks (Rowan‐Kenyon et al, ). It is important to open communication between parents and teachers and allow parents to learn specific strategies/activities to help their child with mathematics at home (Bofferding et al, ; Drummond & Stipek, ; Jacobbe et al, ). By helping foster favorable parental attitudes toward mathematics, parents can become a more positive influence on their child(ren)'s mathematical attitude, which can increase students’ achievement and interest in mathematics.…”

“…Research suggests a student's home environment may influence their attitude toward mathematics (Sheldon & Epstein, ), and parental involvement can increase student achievement (Areepattamannil et al, ; Jacobbe, Ross, & Hensberry, ; Kliman, ; Lopez & Donovan, ). As a result, it is imperative that teachers involve parents in their child's mathematical learning (Bofferding, Kastberg, & Hoffman, ). Although some parents do not have the mathematical content knowledge or pedagogical knowledge for teaching, parents feel more competent in their mathematical ability and interact more with their child when teachers reach out to them (Drummond & Stipek, ; Jacobbe, et al, ).…”

Introducing Preservice Teachers to Family-Centered Practices: A Scoping Review

“…Of the 17 included articles, eight featured qualitative analysis only (Able et al, 2014;Amaro-Jimenez, 2016;Amatea et al, 2013;Bofferding, Hoffman, & Kastberg, 2016;Bottoms, Ciechanowski, Jones, de la Hoz, & Fonseca, 2017;McHatton et al, 2013;Murray et al, 2008;Waddell, 2013;Zeichner, Bowman, Guillen, & Napolitan, 2016); four featured quantitative analysis only (Accardo & Xin, 2017;Bingham & Abernathy, 2007;Brown et al, 2014;Jacobbe et al, 2012), and three featured a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods or described their study as mixed methods (Bergman, 2013;McCullough & Ramirez, 2012;Ramirez et al, 2016).…”

“…Program majors included elementary education, math education, bilingual education, secondary education, special education, early childhood education, dual special and elementary education, and health education. Some studies did not report on majors (Able et al, 2014;Amaro-Jimenez, 2016;Amatea et al, 2013;Bofferding et al, 2016;Brown et al, 2014;Jacobbe et al, 2012;Murray et al, 2008). The majority of participants in all studies reporting on gender were female and Caucasian, but studies also included African American PSTs (Able et al, 2014;Accardo & Xin, 2017;Amatea et al, 2013;Collier et al, 2015;Jacobbe et al, 2012;Waddell, 2013), Latino PSTs (Able et al, 2014;Accardo & Xin, 2017;Bottoms et al, 2017;Ramirez et al, 2016), Asian-American PSTs (Able et al, 2014;Amatea et al, 2013;Bottoms et al, 2017;Brown et al, 2014;Jacobbe et al, 2012); Pacific Islander PSTs (Amatea et al, 2013;Bottoms et al, 2017), biracial PSTs (Amatea et al, 2013), and those selecting "other" in this category (Brown et al, 2014;Collier et al, 2015).…”

“…While these do not make up the entire philosophy of family-centered practices, they are a portion of them. Eleven studies sought to determine the influence of specific interventions on PSTs' dispositions toward working with families (Able et al, 2014;Amatea et al, 2013;Bergman, 2013;Bingham & Abernathy, 2007;Bofferding et al, 2016;Bottoms et al, 2017;Brown et al, 2014;Collier et al, 2015;Jacobbe et al, 2012;McHatton et al, 2013;Waddell, 2013). In addition to perspectives, studies also sought to report on experiences (Waddell, 2013), changes in approaches to working with parents (Amatea et al, 2013), and changes in knowledge of "six types of parent involvement" (Brown et al, 2014, p. 141).…”