Title and Description:

The Concept of Slope: Comparing Teachers Concept Images and Instructional Content
by Courtney Nagle and Deborah Moore-Russo (2013) looks at the connection between teacher
understanding of the concept of slope and their instructional materials on slope that are used in
the classroom. This study looks specifically at pre-service and in-service teachers personal
understanding of the concept of slope and how the types of instructional materials they select
that either correspond to or have little relation to their understanding. All of these teachers were
enrolled in a graduate level course whose primary goal was to introduce them to digital tools to
be used while teaching secondary level mathematics. The use of visual display digital tools Prezi
and Wordle was integral to the study for its usefulness in categorizing the understanding of the
participants concept of slope.
Review of Literature:
In previous studies, the concept of slope has been shown to have various and numerous
representations, all of which are accurate to a degree. Moore-Russo, Conner, and Rugg (2011)
have identified 11 different descriptors of the concept and the concept of slope is seen in various
interpretations at several different levels of mathematics from pre-Algebra to Calculus. One of
the possibilities for student difficulties with the concept, especially in real-world settings, could
be the numerous ways the concept can be described (Nagle & Russo, 2013). In addition, teachers
often will lean on a more procedural knowledge of the concept instead of a conceptual one which
certainly will affect their classroom activities (Morton, Manouchehri, & Owens, 2011). To this
end, the study seeks to find out which descriptors of slope are teachers most comfortable with
and how these descriptors are then implemented in their classrooms.

Analysis of Methodology:
This study looked at 19 participants who were enrolled a graduate level course designed
to introduce digital tools into the secondary mathematics classroom in the fall of 2011 at a
university in the northeastern part of the United States. All of the participants had a degree in
either mathematics or math education. The participants had various levels of experience in the
classroom ranging from 0 to 5-plus years. The participants were given two tasks which required
their knowledge of the concept of slope, both of which were visual in nature. Both tasks were
designed to provide insight into the participants own concept of slope, but the second task was
described as for presentation to students in the classroom. The different tasks were then
evaluated and coded as to which of the 11 descriptors were present or absent. The data was
revisited a second and third time to further refine how teachers think about and present the
concept of slope.
Summary of Results:
In the first task, teachers were creating word clouds that represented the sum of all their
thoughts about slope. In the second task, teachers created concept maps that could be used with
their students to help explain slope. This study showed that in many cases, the participants
stressed visual themes of slope in their word clouds that included real-world situations, but relied
on more algebraic interpretations of slope in their presentations. In short, teachers were not
including their own interpretations of the concept of slope when designing instructional material
to explain the concept to students. In particular, even though real-world representations were a
part of both the word clouds and concept maps of the participants, there was very little efforts to
explain the mathematical content behind those real-world situations.

Opinion and Takeaway:

This study shows the importance of using visual images to not only help explain our
thoughts about the concept of slope, but also why those images cannot be used in isolation.
Without the proper reference to the mathematical concept and interpretation of slope, the images
themselves hold no real meaning for students, hence their difficulties with interpreting slope in
real-world situations. As a follow-up to this study, it would be useful for the participants to be
made aware of the differences found between their concept maps and their own word clouds, so
that adjustments to their student presentations could be made to incorporate more of their own
conceptual understanding. In addition, by applying the foundations of visual literacy in their
classroom presentations, students would be given the opportunity to broaden their understanding
of the concept of slope as they progress through the grade levels from middle school to high
school to college mathematics.
For me personally, this same type of exercise would be excellent for teacher groups to
perform at the beginning of each new unit of instruction. By analyzing our own thoughts and
understanding of the important concepts of a unit, we can then make sure that our instructional
activities help deliver our own conceptual understanding to the students without relying on rote
mathematical procedure. By using visual tools like Prezi and Wordle, these visual word displays
can serve as an anchor image to build the understanding around. In addition, students can refer
back to these visual displays as their understanding grows in order to decode more applications
for each concept.
References:
Moore-Russo, D., Conner, A., & Rugg, K. I. (2011). Can slope be negative in 3-space? Studying
concept image of slope through collective definition construction. Educational Studies in
Mathematics, 76(1), 3-21.

Morton, B., Manouchehri, A., & Owens, D. T. (2011). Representations of linear functions in
the presence of connected classroom technology. In L.R. Weist and T. Lamberg (Eds.),
Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Meeting of the North American Chapter of the
International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (pp. 1741-1749).
Reno, NV: University of Nevada, Reno.
Nagle, C., & Moore-Russo, D. (2013). The concept of slope: Comparing teachers' concept
images and instructional content. Investigations in Mathematics Learning, 6(2), 1-18.