DOI: 10.5064/f6w3by0s
title: M1 Ordering Fractions Elementary Mathematics Task

description: &lt;h3&gt;Project Overview&lt;/h3&gt;
In this four-year project called Developing Preservice Elementary Teachers' Ability to Facilitate Goal-Oriented Discussions in Science and Mathematics via the Use of Simulated Classroom Interactions (GO Discuss), Educational Testing Service and Mursion developed, piloted, and validated a set of performance-based tasks delivered within a simulated classroom environment in order to improve preservice elementary teachers’ ability to orchestrate discussions. These tasks provided opportunities for preservice teachers in science and mathematics to facilitate discussions with five upper elementary student avatars (fifth grade) where the focus is on disciplinary argumentation within two content domains: fractions (mathematics) and structure/properties of matter (science). The overall goal of this research was to develop a validity basis for the use of such tools as formative assessment tasks that can be integrated within educator preparation programs to increase the amount, variety, and quality of clinical practice opportunities currently available to preservice elementary teachers. &lt;br&gt;&lt;p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For this project, we developed eight performance-based tasks, four in mathematics and four in science, designed to be used by pre-service elementary teachers as they practice leading classroom discussions in the simulated classroom. Each task provides a scenario and specific details about the discussion, including the student learning goal, students’ background information, and what happened prior to the discussion. We also included the student work related to the mathematics problem or science investigation that was the focus within that task and a summary of important things that we wanted the pre-service elementary teachers to notice about the student work. &lt;br&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This specific data project includes materials for one elementary mathematics task, called Ordering Fractions. In this task, the pre-service teacher leads a discussion on students’ responses to a problem asking them to order three fractions from least to greatest. Prior to this discussion, students worked in small groups to complete the problem, write an explanation for their answer, and consider whether their strategy could be applied more generally to other similar problems. The differences in the groups’ answers to the problem, strategies used, and claims about whether their strategies can be generalized form the basis for this discussion. Materials for pre-service teachers, resources for teacher educators, including sample videos, and task-specific simulation specialist training materials are included.&lt;br&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For a complete description of the broader “Go Discuss” project, including a list of files for each task, as well as to read the detailed Terms of Use, please start by reading the &lt;a href="https://doi.org/10.5064/F6W3BY0S/ZFTWLO"&gt;Data Overview&lt;/a&gt; file. Some files appear in different formats with identical content. This is intentional. ETS wants to encourage adaptation of the deposited materials (which might be easier to implement in Word documents), but also wants to ensure that images and math notations are rendered correctly for secondary users (best preserved in PDF).