Mathematics

Our project has two main components. First, we are creating instructional videos that feature the unscripted dialogue of pairs of students as they engage with mathematically rich problems over time, thereby providing a model of how authentic student voices and conceptions can be included in videos. Second, we are conducting studies that investigate students’ learning processes as they engage with our videos and explore how our videos might be used in classroom instruction.

This collaboration between Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Bowdoin College, and Vanderbilt University engages middle-school students in building and revising models of variability and change in ecosystems and studies the learning and instruction in these classroom contexts. Students construct and critique models that they and peers invent and develop foundational knowledge about the roles of variability and change in ecosystem functioning, as well as the roles of models and argumentation in scientific practice.

This project uses over 2000 integrated STEM classroom videos to design and validate the STEM Observation Protocol (STEM-OP) for use in classrooms where integrated STEM is taking place. The STEM-OP is a valid and reliable instrument for use in a variety of educational contexts and research. The STEM-OP and associated training materials are available for use by stakeholders such as K-12 teachers, district administrators, teacher educators, and educational researchers through an online platform.

The DataX project aims to develop an integrated, justice-oriented curriculum and a digital platform for teaching secondary students about data science. This project includes science and social studies teachers in the design of the resources and in testing them in classrooms. The DataX platform supports students to investigate authentic problems using real-world datasets. The project team will present a justice-oriented data science education framework, lesson plans co-designed with teachers, and preliminary findings from classroom pilots.

There are long-standing calls to make mathematics more meaningful, relevant, and applicable both inside and outside of the K-12 classroom. In particular, there is a growing recognition that mathematics is a valuable tool for helping students understand important real-world issues that affect their lives and society. Further, mathematics can support students in becoming mathematically literate and engaged democratic citizens. Despite the increased interest in connecting mathematics to real-world issues in the classroom, many teachers feel unprepared to do so.

Broadening participation in STEM requires a change in how K-12 teachers engage and educate students who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. The CRAFT project provides a field-based science and mathematics teacher education program that supports teaching focused on students’ affective development through culturally responsive practices.

In this project we are studying a sustained implementation of ambitious mathematics teaching (AMT) in a high need setting. Our goal is to articulate the demands of AMT, the resources necessary to address those demands, and the tensions between AMT and other internal and external initiatives. We collaboratively developed the model with instructional leaders, students, parents, and teachers. We operate from a definition of AMT that incorporates disciplinary practices as well as asset-based practices.

This project enhances two interdisciplinary project-based learning (PBL) modules from EL Education with authentic data experiences co-designed with science, math, and social studies middle school teachers. Applying “messy” datasets to relevant societal issues within their existing curriculum and subject matter, we used CODAP to introduce data science education skills and ways of thinking and we examined how engaging and empowering students and teachers can help them develop acumen with data and agency as learners.

This project addresses questions regarding how teacher education clinical experiences might become a mutually productive site for teacher candidate (TC) and mentor teacher (MT) learning. The goal of this project is to design and study a model of co-learning between TCs and MTs through the development of tools and theory in support of co-learning ambitious, equity-oriented mathematics instruction. We offer insights and challenges of tool design and TC-MT tool use based on multiple design cycles.

This poster will share the development of a framework around adaptive expertise and mathematics language routines. Our larger project aims to understand how teachers’ learning communities, teachers, and students develop adaptive expertise in their use of mathematics language routines. Hatano and Inagaki (1984) defined an adaptive expert as someone who can perform procedural skills with flexibility and has developed a conceptual understanding of those skills—they can apply them flexibly in multiple situations.