This project will adapt and study successful discourse strategies used during language arts instruction to help teachers promote mathematically-rich classroom discourse. Of special interest is the use of models to promote mathematics communication that includes English language learners (ELL) in mathematics discourse.The project will result in a full 40-hour professional development module to support mathematics discourse for Grade 2 teachers, with an emphasis on place value, multidigit addition and subtraction, and linear measurement.
Projects
Over the years, researchers and practitioners have created and tested different ways to support students who struggle with learning mathematics. These methods include directly teaching various mathematics skills and strategies that affect mathematics performance, such as alleviating mathematics anxiety and fostering motivation and engagement in mathematics learning. The idea is that teaching mathematics using a mix of these skills or strategies might help students learn better than teaching just one skill or strategy at a time. However, it remains unclear which skills or strategies should be taught together and if mixing different skills or strategies leads to differential effects across different students or contexts. Understanding this is vital because it can help researchers and practitioners determine the best ways to address the need of struggling students in mathematics. A network meta-analysis will allow the field to examine different combinations of instructional skills/strategies as well as their interaction effects, which can provide more optimal information about different instructional approaches.
The project is studying the impact of the mathematics and science intensive pre-service preparation program for elementary school teachers. The project includes assessments of pre-service teachers' math and science content, teacher performance, self-report surveys, and teacher interviews. Each of the study dimensions (Knowledge Dimension, Teaching Performance, and Perspectives on the Program) will be assessed at three time points across this longitudinal study, providing a model for elementary teacher development of STEM teaching.
The purpose of Project Delta is two-fold: (1) to extend an existing library of 17 interacting CD-ROM digital learning environments on numbers and operations by adding an algebra strand, and (2) to evaluate the impact of the new algebra materials on teacher development. Each of the digital environments features classroom sessions that allow for exploration of a mathematics topic, children learning over time, and teachers? instructional techniques.
Project M2 is producing and disseminating curriculum materials in geometry and measurement for students in grades K-2. This builds on success of the M3 U.S. Department of Education curriculum grant for students in Grades 3-5. (www.projectm3.org). Project M2 units are advanced units for all students designed using research-based practices in mathematics, early childhood, and gifted education. Curricular materials focus on promising discourse and hands-on inquiry of rich problem-situations.
The project plans to develop and study a series of metacognitive strategies that support learning and engagement for struggling middle school students during makerspace experiences. The study will focus narrowly on establishing a foundational understanding of how to ameliorate barriers to engaging in design learning through the use of metacognitive strategies. The project plans to translate and apply research on the use of metacognitive strategies in supporting struggling learners to develop approaches that teachers can implement to increase opportunities for students who are the most difficult to reach academically.
This project focuses on the creation of the initial functionality for a dynamic microworld, Proportions Playground, designed to support teachers in developing a coherent understanding of proportional reasoning. The Proportions Playground project seeks to both develop a unique pilot software application for the iPad and explore how it supports teachers in developing a coherent, robust definition of proportions.
This study takes an innovative approach to documenting how teacher knowledge can be enhanced by incorporating a design experience into pre-service mathematics education. Teachers will use digital and fabrication technologies (e.g., 3D printers and laser cutters) to design and use manipulatives for K-6 mathematics learning. The goals of the project include describing how this experience influences the prospective teachers' knowledge and identities while creating curriculum for teacher education.
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.
In this project, a video and audio network links elementary school teachers with researchers and educators at Purdue to form a community of practice dedicated to implementing engineering education at the elementary grades. The research plan includes identifying the attributes of face-to-face and cyber-enabled teacher professional development and community building that can transform teachers into master users and designers of engineering education for elementary learners.
Teachers of mathematics engage in curricular reasoning as they design and interact with their students, choose curricular materials, and implement curriculum standards in the service of high-quality instruction. Currently, there is no shared measure of curricular reasoning of middle school teacher classroom decision making in mathematics. In this research project, the team develops and validates two measures of middle school teachers’ curricular reasoning in mathematics as practiced. The first measure looks at curriculum reasoning from the perspective of the teacher, the second measure attends to the perspectives of the mathematics education research community.
Teachers of mathematics engage in curricular reasoning as they design and interact with their students, choose curricular materials, and implement curriculum standards in the service of high-quality instruction. Currently, there is no shared measure of curricular reasoning of middle school teacher classroom decision making in mathematics. In this research project, the team develops and validates two measures of middle school teachers’ curricular reasoning in mathematics as practiced. The first measure looks at curriculum reasoning from the perspective of the teacher, the second measure attends to the perspectives of the mathematics education research community.
Teachers of mathematics engage in curricular reasoning as they design and interact with their students, choose curricular materials, and implement curriculum standards in the service of high-quality instruction. Currently, there is no shared measure of curricular reasoning of middle school teacher classroom decision making in mathematics. In this research project, the team develops and validates two measures of middle school teachers’ curricular reasoning in mathematics as practiced. The first measure looks at curriculum reasoning from the perspective of the teacher, the second measure attends to the perspectives of the mathematics education research community.
Teachers of mathematics engage in curricular reasoning as they design and interact with their students, choose curricular materials, and implement curriculum standards in the service of high-quality instruction. Currently, there is no shared measure of curricular reasoning of middle school teacher classroom decision making in mathematics. In this research project, the team develops and validates two measures of middle school teachers’ curricular reasoning in mathematics as practiced. The first measure looks at curriculum reasoning from the perspective of the teacher, the second measure attends to the perspectives of the mathematics education research community.
Teachers of mathematics engage in curricular reasoning as they design and interact with their students, choose curricular materials, and implement curriculum standards in the service of high-quality instruction. Currently, there is no shared measure of curricular reasoning of middle school teacher classroom decision making in mathematics. In this research project, the team develops and validates two measures of middle school teachers’ curricular reasoning in mathematics as practiced. The first measure looks at curriculum reasoning from the perspective of the teacher, the second measure attends to the perspectives of the mathematics education research community.
This project will study learning associated with elementary teachers' engagement in professional learning and elementary students' learning related to quantum science, quantum thinking, and careers. The knowledge base required for elementary teachers and students to learn quantum will be identified in order to explore and compare how elementary students and teachers conceptualize and make sense of quantum science concepts.
This workshop convenes leading practitioners and scholars of innovation to collectively consider how education in the US might be reconfigured to both support and teach innovation as a core curriculum mission, with a focus on STEM education. Workshop participants identify and articulate strategies for creating and sustaining learning environments that promise the development of innovative thinking skills, behaviors and dispositions and that reward students, faculty and administrator for practicing and tuning these skills.
Despite the tremendous growth in the availability of mathematics videos online, little research has investigated student learning from them. The goal of this exploratory project is to create, investigate, and provide evidence of promise for a model of online videos that embodies a more expansive vision of both the nature of the content and the pedagogical approach than is currently represented in YouTube-style lessons.
This project proposes to study the teaching and learning of algebra in grades 7-9, with a specific focus on the ways in which classroom language explicitly describes properties of and relationships among algebraic objects. The project seeks to investigate the bi-directional relationship between reasoning-rich algebraic discourse and the mathematical meanings students hold for core algebraic concepts such as equations, the equation-solving process, and functions.
This project will work with middle school mathematics teachers in San Francisco Unified School District to develop their capacity to conduct professional development for the teachers in their schools. A central goal of this project is to develop models and resources for effective professional development and preparation of professional development leaders in mathematics with special attention to students who are English language learners.
This project has two goals:
1) to discover methods that can efficiently obtain information about the effects of high school programs on eventual college success. Methods we are considering include obtaining transcripts from post-secondary institutions, surveying high school graduates, and obtaining information from the National Student Clearinghouse.
2) to explore how students who studied Contemporary Mathematics in Context (Core Plus) or the Integrated Mathematics Program (IMP) fare in post secondary institutions.
The goal of these two linked conferences was to build more effective connections between research and practice. Specifically, the conferences brought together researchers, practitioners. and policy makers around improving students' mathematics proficiency by ensuring that researchers were investigating the most urgent problems of practice and that practitioners were connected to the research in ways that makes the knowledge useful to instruction.
This project studies mathematics professional development leaders' understandings and practices associated with developing mathematically rich learning environments. It investigates this issue by considering: How can leaders cultivate professional development environments in which teachers have a greater opportunity to grapple with and deeply understand mathematics? The project studies how explicit attention to the cultivation of sociomathematical norms influences leaders' understanding of the process of creating mathematically rich environments and the impacts on their practices.
This research is examining science and mathematics teacher learning in the context of an alternative certification program employing two different models of field-based preparation. The project will inform the research community about science and mathematics teacher learning and will aid in the design and implementation of alternative certification programs and field-based internships in science and mathematics teacher preparation, as well as potentially impact policymaking concerning teacher certification.
This project addresses the challenge “How can promising innovations be successfully implemented, sustained, and scaled in schools and districts in a cost effective manner?” Project partners are researching the expansion of an established preparation and induction support program for K-5 mathematics specialists into rural school systems.