Working with a partner: An investigation of student engagement in an middle school math classroom

Abstract

Many students work in small groups as they solve mathematical problems. In order for them to benefit from such experiences, each individual must be engaged, at least to some extent, during the problem solving session. Such engagement may take many forms, and in this paper, we focus on three closely related types of engagement, and discuss them with respect to both cognition and affect. We provide classroom examples of each, including student explanations of their mathematical ideas and reasoning. In addition, we provide qualitative descriptions of quantitative data as gathered in response to questionnaire items.