Projects

The PuM project develops and conducts research on a learning continuum for seamless instruction in middle school physical science and high school physics. The ultimate goal is to use physics as the context to develop mathematics literacy, particularly with students from underrepresented populations and special needs students. The research component analyzes the effects of the curriculum on students' learning while simultaneously investigating teachers' pedagogical content knowledge in a variety of forms.

This project develops images, extended examples, and principles that illustrate how the articulation, representation and justification of general claims about operations evolve in the elementary grades and how this work supports the transition from arithmetic to algebra in the middle grades. An online course uses the Sourcebook as a text to engage teachers in considering the underlying pedagogical and mathematical aspects of the work and implementing these ideas in their instruction.

The primary goal of the project is to enhance secondary mathematics teacher education for pre-service teachers by developing, implementing and disseminating resources from a four-course curriculum that brings together the study of mathematics content and pedagogy. Three of the courses are problem-based technology enhanced (PBTE) courses in Algebra and Calculus, Geometry, and Probability and Statistics. A fourth course is a capstone course in Teaching and Learning Secondary School Mathematics.

This project compares the effects on algebraic learning when using the Connected Math Program to the effects of using other (non-NSF supported) middle school mathematics curriculum materials at the middle school level. The algebra focus skills/concepts to be assessed are: conceptual understanding and problem solving; algebraic manipulative skills; solution strategies, representations and mathematical justifications.