MEASURING MATHEMATICS CLASSROOM INTERACTIONS: AN OBSERVATION PROTOCOL REINFORCING THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING
This study measured the degree to which actions of teachers and students in mathematics classrooms align with practices recommended by national organizations and initiatives, through the lenses of teaching mathematics for conceptual understanding within a community of learners, examining teacher facilitation, and student engagement. This theoretical model used the creation and validation of an observational instrument designed for the K 16 mathematics classroom, the Mathematics Classroom Observation Protocol for Practices (MCOP).Consideration was given to both direct and dialogic instruction. Instrument validation involved feedback from over 125 external review experts in mathematics education for content validity; inter rater internal reliability analyses; and structure analyses via scree plot analyses exploratory factor analysis. A two factor structure instrument was determined to support the measurement of teacher as a facilitator and student engagement in learning mathematics.