Honors College Theses

Publication Date

4-15-2024

Major

Special Education (B.S.Ed.)

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Faculty Mentor

Heidi Eisenreich

Abstract

Parents’ beliefs towards math have been shown to impact their children’s academic achievement in the subject (Elliott & Bachman, 2018; Maloney et al., 2015). With the constant changing of math standards, the math taught in today’s schools may be different from the way parents were taught math. This change can lead to feelings of discomfort or nervousness when the subject is brought up. A parent workshop geared towards helping parents better understand the way math content is being taught can help them to feel more comfortable with math and more prepared to help their children. To help combat this issue, a parent workshop focused on K-2 place value concepts and addition/subtraction of whole numbers was held at a local elementary school in Fall 2023. At this workshop, parents engaged in K-2 math concepts using various manipulatives and strategies. This study addressed the question “What are parents’ experiences after engaging in a mathematics workshop focused on K-2 concepts such as place value, addition, and subtraction?” Throughout the workshop, four participants were observed to take note of their general attitudes and feelings towards the content and strategies. Afterwards, the parents completed a short survey about their experiences in math both in the past and at the workshop. Due to the limited number of participants, these responses were analyzed using a case study approach. After analyzing the responses, it was found that the parents had an overall positive experience and believed other parents should attend a similar workshop.

Thesis Summary

Oftentimes, parents experience feelings of nervousness or discomfort whenever they are helping their children with mathematics at home. A parent workshop geared towards helping parents better understand the way math content is being taught can help them to feel more comfortable with math and more prepared to help their children. To help combat this issue, a parent workshop focused on K-2 place value concepts and addition/subtraction of whole numbers was held at a local elementary school in Fall 2023. At this workshop, parents engaged in K-2 math concepts using various manipulatives and strategies. The parents' experiences were analyzed through observational field notes and an open-ended survey.

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