2013 Conference Proceedings - University of Nevada, Las Vegas

teachers to continue to develop an understanding of the conceptual metaphors used by teachers.The claim is that identifying teacher metaphors directly aids in teacher meaningful listening.These results will be discussed at the conference.If the vehicle for this methodology is conceptual metaphors, teacher listening fuels thisvehicle. In Michael Gilbert’s (2005) article, An examination of listening effectiveness ofeducators: Performance and preference, he identifies how different personalities in educationhave different indicators of effective listening. Gilbert identifies that teachers expect students tolisten 65-90% in the traditional classroom, but how do mathematics teachers listen? Thepersonality type for most mathematics teachers is the persistor; conscientious, dedicated, andobservant believers in their craft. According to Gilbert, these personalities scored very low oneffective listening. This is no surprise as Gilbert recognizes the limited training we give toeducators on how to listen.The significance to teacher listening can be perceived from the pervasive need for allteachers to see metaphors as an intimate form of communication at all levels of education (Petrie& Oshlag, 1993), to the specific understanding that metaphors directly imply an embodiedmathematics that is not mind-free (Lakoff & Nunez, 2000). Davis (1997) discovered through aseries of vignettes that mathematics teachers listen through “concept study” with three levels oflistening: evaluative listening (assessment-based paradigm), interpretive listening (constructivistparadigm), and hermeneutic listening (conceptual participation paradigm). The third form oflistening Davis suggests is what teachers should strive to develop, an immersed perspective ofgenuinely participating and sharing in the cognitive experiential development of the meaningbehind the mathematical topic. In no way is this restricted to problem solving. Problem solvingwas my means to discovering this methodology, but not its only use.What my research proposes is that CMT analysis allows for this participatoryconceptualization by analyzing and interpreting the shared experiences of the students throughtheir conceptual metaphors. This is not to suggest that teachers must follow my methodology inthe classroom as this is ridiculously time and energy consuming. Instead, I suggest throughpractice and professional development with conceptual metaphor theory, teacher’s ability tolisten her will advance from interpretive listening to hermeneutic listening so that mathematics iscontextualized for the student in terms of their experiences and not the teachers.Proceedings of the 40 th Annual Meeting of the Research Council on Mathematics Learning 2013 177