Season 3 | Episode 6 – Nurturing Mathematical Curiosity: Supporting Mathematical Argumentation in the Early Grades - Guests: Drs. Jody Guarino and Chepina Rumsey

Drs. Jody Guarino and Chepina Rumsey, Nurturing Mathematical Curiosity: Supporting Mathematical Argumentation in the Early Grades

ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 6

Argumentation, justification, conjecture. All of these are practices we hope to cultivate, but they may not be practices we associate with kindergartners, first-, or second graders. What would it look like to encourage these practices with our youngest learners? Today, we'll talk about this question with Jody Guarino and Chepina Rumsey, authors of the book Nurturing Math Curiosity with Learners in Grades K–2.

BIOGRAPHIES

Chepina Rumsey, PhD, is an associate professor of mathematics education at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). 

Jody Guarino is currently a mathematics coordinator at the Orange County Department of Education and a lecturer at the University of California, Irvine. 

RESOURCES

Nurturing Math Curiosity with Learners in Grades K–2

Nurturing Math Curiosity on X/Twitter

Tools to support K–2 students in mathematical argumentation. Teaching Children Mathematics, 25(4), 208–217.

TRANSCRIPT

Mike Wallus: Argumentation, justification, conjecture. All of these are practices we hope to cultivate, but they may not be practices we associate with kindergarten, first-, and second graders. What would it look like to encourage these practices with our youngest learners? Today, we'll talk about this question with Jody Guarino and Chepina Rumsey, authors of the book Nurturing Math Curiosity with Learners in Grades K–2. 

Welcome to the podcast, Chepina and Jody. Thank you so much for joining us today. 

Jody Guarino: Thank you for having us. 

Chepina Rumsey: Yeah, thank you. 

Mike: So, I'm wondering if we can start by talking about the genesis of your work, particularly for students in grades K–2. 

Jody: Sure. Chepina had written a paper about argumentation, and her paper was situated in a fourth grade class. At the time, I read the article and was so inspired, and I wanted to use it in an upcoming professional learning that I was going to be doing. And I got some pushback with people saying, "Well, how is this relevant to K–2 teachers?" And it really hit me that there was this belief that K–2 students couldn't engage in argumentation. Like, "OK, this paper's great for older kids, but we're not really sure about the young students." And at the time, there wasn't a lot written on argumentation in primary grades. So, we thought, "Well, let's try some things and really think about, 'What does it look like in primary grades?' And let's find some people to learn with." 

So, I approached some of my recent graduates from my teacher ed program who were working in primary classrooms and a principal that employed quite a few of them with this idea of, "Could we learn some things together? Could we come and work with your teachers and work with you and just kind of get a sense of what could students do in kindergarten to second grade?" So, we worked with three amazing teachers—Bethany, Rachael, and Christina—in their first years of teaching, and we worked with them monthly for two years. We wanted to learn, "What does it look like in K–2 classrooms?" And each time we met with them, we would learn more and get more and more excited. Little kids are brilliant, but also their teachers were brilliant, taking risks and trying things. I met with one of the teachers last week, and the original students that were part of the book that we've written now are actually in high school. So, it was just such a great learning opportunity for us. 

Mike: Well, I'll say this, there are many things that I appreciated about the book, about Nurturing Math Curiosity with Learners in Grades K–2, and I think one of the first things was the word "with" that was found in the title. So why "with" learners? What were y'all trying to communicate? 

Chepina: I'm so glad you asked that, Mike, because that was something really important to us when we were coming up with the title and the theme of the book, the message. So, we think it's really important to nurture curiosity with our students, meaning we can't expect to grow it in them if we're not also growing it in ourselves. So, we see that children are naturally cu