Middle
Understanding the Fidelity of Implementation and Scalability of Mathematics Professional Development Curricula (Moeller, Seago, Borko)
Three DR-K12 projects investigating the implementation of mathematics professional
development programs by district-based facilitators discuss with participants their approaches to assessing fidelity and preliminary findings.
Understanding the Fidelity of Implementation and Scalability of Mathematics Professional Development Curricula (Moeller, Seago, Borko)
Three DR-K12 projects investigating the implementation of mathematics professional
development programs by district-based facilitators discuss with participants their approaches to assessing fidelity and preliminary findings.
Trying Very Hard to Make Games that Don't Stink: User Testing at the NMSU Learning Games Lab
Barbara Chamberlin, with the NMSU Learning Games Lab, shares their user testing processes and strategies. The educational development studio involves content experts and game developers in their game design process, also employing a rigorous user testing process throughout development. The Games Lab developers host learners in their target audience for 2-week sessions during the summer, and on holidays throughout the schoolyear. They train their "game lab consultants" in giving feedback, and have access for frequent testing. Barbara shared the underlying principles that guides their user testing, with recommendations on how they could be amended by others for testing, even in shorter sessions.
Tipping Points: Tools and Routines To Support Expert-Like Practice in Early Career Teachers (Thompson, Windschitl, Braaten)
Presenters share outcomes of a research-based, tool-supported system of induction created to advance novice teachers’ capacity to scaffold students’ construction of evidence and explanation.
Thinking with Data: A Cross-Curricular Approach to Data Literacy (Cook, Vahey)
Thinking with Data (TWD) is an Instructional Materials Design (IMD) project which developed and tested a cross-curricular unit designed to cultivate middle school students’ deep understanding of data literacy. The TWD unit consists of four, 2-week replacement modules for interdisciplinary implementation in 7th grade Social Studies, Mathematics, Science, and English Language Arts. The modules address issues of data representation, proportional reasoning, and data-based argumentation using real data in discipline-specific, problem-solving contexts aligned with relevant subject area standards.
The Use of Illustrations in Large-Scale Science Assessment: A Comparative Study
In this paper, we report on a study that compares state, national, and international assessment programs as to the characteristics and functions of the illustrations used in their science test items. We used our conceptual framework for examining the characteristics of illustrations in science items (Solano-Flores & Wang, 2009, 2011) to code the illustrations of samples of items.
The Role of the Institutional Setting in Teachers’ Development of Ambitious Instructional Practices in Middle-Grades Mathematics (Jackson, Cobb, McGraner)
Three DR-K12 projects report findings on aspects of the institutional setting of teaching that affects teachers’ development of ambitious instructional practices in middle-school mathematics.