Persistence of playing school: Examining a place-based intervention for shaping students’ mathematical practices.

Abstract

In this paper, we report on a study in which we investigated the outcomes of a 90-day immersive semester-program located on an island in the western Atlantic Ocean that utilizes an immersive place-based curriculum for shaping students’ learning. Using interviews and surveys, we investigated how students describe their mathematical experiences in the program, changes in students’ attitudes towards mathematics, and students' tendencies to engage in sense making (drawing on realistic considerations) in the context of story problems administered during their time in the program. Our findings suggest that while students' experiences in an immersive mathematical experience outside of school may support them in gaining more productive dispositions towards mathematics, it may not be enough to support students in "unlearning" the norms regarding the suspension of sense-making associated with doing story problems in school.