Mathematics Instruction at the Two-Year College: An ERIC Review

Teaching Approaches of Community College Mathematics Faculty

“…As a result, there are two gaps in the literature, one regarding the connection between what instructors say about teaching and their actual classroom practice (Kane, Sandretto, & Heath, 2002), and another about the nature of the interactions that happen in the classroom on particular content and that have a strong bearing on what students ultimately learn. These analyses are more common in the K-12 literature, particularly in the mathematics education literature (e.g., A. M. Cohen, 1985;Schoenfeld, 1988;Stipek, Givvin, Salmon, & MacGyvers, 2001), where it is typical to study the quality of the interaction (e.g., questions, teachers' moves) between students and teachers in specific lessons on specific content (e.g., fractions, proofs). The very different environments of K-12 schools and higher-education institutions (e.g., mandatory versus voluntary student attendance, teacher preparation in content and pedagogy versus preparation in a discipline, requirement to follow local or national standards versus academic freedom) suggest that similar analyses might yield different results in the higher education context.…”