>> DR. ELSA NUNEZ: Hello I'm Elsa Nunez, President of Eastern Connecticut State University.

At Eastern we encourage our students, whenever possible, to work with faculty on applied

research, so I am pleased to share with you new research findings about factors that contribute

to children's mathematical abilities. This information, gathered by faculty and

student researchers in Eastern's Center for Early Childhood Education, has powerful implications

for teachers who work with young children. I hope you find it useful.

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>> DR. SUDHA SWAMINATHAN: The purpose of the math play study was to investigate teacher-child

interactions during play settings. But specifically we wanted to look at the math interactions,

so we wanted to study what kinds of teacher interactions led to stronger mathematical

engagement for preschool children.

>> DR. JEFFREY TRAWICK-SMITH: We were curious about whether teachersí interactions with

children, to kind of support play, would actually have an impact on their learning of number,

or mathematical thinking.

>> NARRATOR: Six Eastern Connecticut State University students assisted

with carrying out the study.

>> JENNY WOLFF: We did an assessment, the TEMA Assessment, with children in the beginning

of the school year to get a baseline about their mathematical ability and then we re-assessed

them at the end of the year to see how they progressed in those mathematical abilities.

We then also looked at, through some video, how the interactions with their teachers helped

those mathematical progressions.

>> DR. SWAMINATHAN: We recorded the children during play, and especially when the teacher

would come near them and talk to them.

>> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: We didn't ask teachers to do anything special. They didn't try out

any kind of intervention or method of teaching. We took videos of that very natural interaction

during free play time in classrooms.

>> CLAIRE FRYER: We edited those clips to only the teacher-child interactions and then

we coded those based on certain standards that we had, like how long they were, if they

were good interactions or not, and things like that.

>> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: We looked at whether there were relationships between the ways

that teachers kind of supported play, or interacted with children in play and mathematical thinking.

>> DR. SWAMINATHAN: The second part was we looked at the math behind the play interactions:

Was it related to number sense, was it related to problem solving? We looked at measurement

opportunities, we looked at communication, math talk communication. And our results were very

striking and fairly interesting.

>> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: We began to discover that there were several ways that teachers

support math while they're just kind of interacting with them, as they play.

>> Teacher: Alright, now I have another question. How do we find out the answer to that?

How do we find out if we're actually right?

>> NARRATOR: There were three major findings in the study. The first was related to teacher-child

interactions around number sense.

>> DR. SWAMINATHAN: The first math-related results showed that the more you talk about

numbers to children, the more they learn numbers.

>> Teacher: How many blocks do we have here? Can we count them? Can you help me count them?

>> Child: Look at this one! >> Teacher: That's so tall! Let's count

how tall it is. One, two, three.

>> JENNY WOLFF: Number sense for mathematical interactions is a basic understanding of

numerals and quantities.

>> Child: Five, six, eight. >> Teacher: Seven.

>> Child: Seven. >> Teacher: Eight.

>> Child: Eight.

>> JENNY WOLFF: There were a lot of interactions with number sense around board games.

The teacher was able to observe the mathematical ability by seeing how many spaces that child

moved and how that child understood the correlation between number and quantity.

>> Child: Watch this time! One, two, three, four, five, six.

Teacher: Very good.

>> DR. SWAMINATHAN: Research has shown that number sense is very critical in preschool,

so it wasn't surprising that we found that these children learned so much of number sense.

>> NARRATOR: The second finding was related to communication between teachers and children

about mathematics.

>> DR. SWAMINATHAN: The more interesting part of our study was that we found communication

was significantly important for these children.

>> JENNY WOLFF: Communication around mathematics is basically the child explaining their understanding

of a concept.

>> Teacher: What are the differences between the red one, the blue one, and the yellow?

>> Child: They're bigger and they're squares.

>> JENNY WOLFF: It may be a child explaining how they came to understand that two objects

are not the same size, maybe they compare it using standard measurement tools; maybe

they put it next to each other. But it's the child's ability to explain their processes,

and that can be aided by questions from the adult.

>> Teacher: How do we find out if it fits? >> Girl: We have to try it.

>> Boy: We have to measure. >> Teacher: Alright, so why don't we do that?

Do you have a ruler?

>> DR. SWAMINATHAN: So the teachers and the children who talk about math, so they actually

talked about their counting, they talked about their mathematical problem solving,

they talked about measurement.

>> Teacher: It's up to eleven? And how many was the light box? How many inches?

>> Child: Ten. >> Teacher: Ten. So which one's bigger?

>> DR. SWAMINATHAN: These children talked about math, and when they did, it wasn't

just to say what answer they got, which is the most typical expectation in classrooms.

They talked about their processes, how they went about solving things. Or they talked

about why something did not work. So those who engaged in math talk had greater mathematical

gains at the end of the school year.

>> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: This suggests that effort to get children to think numerically, and

also to talk about what they're doing as they're thinking about number or other areas

of math, that those things will actually have a positive impact on their math learning.

>> DR. SWAMINATHAN: And this has not actually been proven by earlier research and it's

only been talked about theoretically in the math circle, but it was interesting for us

to see a significant result in our study.

>> NARRATOR: The third major finding was about the importance of good-fit interactions

during all types of play.

>> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: When teachers support children's play, and they support it in a

way that really is aligned with what children are currently doing,

we call this a good fit play interaction.

>> Teacher: It has three flowers, where else do you see that? There you go.

>> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: A teacher studies what a child is currently doing in play, and then

provides just the right amount of support to help them think more deeply or become more

symbolic in their play. And what we found are those good-fit play interactions were

associated with increases in mathematical thinking. This is the most exciting finding,

at least to me as a play researcher. Teachers' interactions support play itself, and then

subsequent gains in children's play ability will support cognitive development, intellectual

development and that includes mathematical thinking.

>> DR. SWAMINATHAN: Research in cognitive science talks about how when you articulate

your problems, then you are actually seeking out a solution, and your mind starts to put

the verbal parts into a solution pattern. So this was interesting to see that connection in the preschool area.

>> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: The study suggests that teachers have a role to play in this process, that

they, through their interactions, can really support higher levels of mathematical thinking.

And the best way that they're able to do this is through interactions that support

play itself that really help children to play in more complex or symbolic ways.

>> JENNY WOLFF: The most interesting thing was the amount of mathematical knowledge that

the children actually have and the ability for these teachers to bring that out through

their questions and their scaffolding.

>> Teacher: Do you know what number this is? There's a four and a one.

>> Child: Forty. >> Teacher: Forty one!

>> JENNY WOLFF: I think that there's times when we really underestimate the abilities of preschoolers

and children in general and to see these children understanding that you can measure these objects

and compare objects at age 3, 4, and 5 was amazing to me.

>> CLAIRE FRYER: The whole experience of the study in general was experience most teachers

don't usually get. And I think that all of that will influence how I will become a teacher

and how I treat my children in the classroom. And things that I can incorporate.

>> DR. TRAWICK-SMITH: Our finding supports the theory that language is really important

in learning and that play is useful. And it goes beyond just supporting social and emotional

development; that play also contributes to intellectual development and even academic learning.

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