Mathematics

Exploring K-2 Children Understandings of Visual Representations in Algebraic Reasoning

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This project explores how children in grades K-2 understand visual representations of algebraic concepts. For instance, children create tables or graphs to organize information about the relationship between two quantities. They might use graphs and diagrams to explain their mathematical thinking and develop their understanding of relationships in numbers and operations. The project uses data gathered in K-2 classrooms and via interviews with children to describe their use of the visual representations.

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Examining an On-line, International Exchange Professional Development Program for High School Teachers

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This project explores the potential of lesson-centered collaboration on lessons for supporting teachers’ professional growth. Specifically, the project examines how the exchange between both domestic and international teams of teachers centered on teacher-generated lesson artifacts—in the form of storyboarded lessons and annotations of those lessons—can serve as a powerful tool for supporting teachers’ ongoing professional learning and growth through collaboration.

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Enhancing the Teacher-Curriculum Relationship in Problem-based Mathematics Classrooms by Connecting Teacher and Student Digital Collaborative Environments

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The project is extending a digital collaborative platform for networks of teachers to create, use, and share resources for planning, teaching, and reflecting. The resources online include problem-based curriculum, classroom artifacts from students, and resources created by teachers. We report on how teachers use the resources, collaborate with each other, and make instructional decisions. With more classroom resources being created online, the project will help understand how mathematics teaching can be best supported.

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Empowering Students with Choice Through Equitable and Interactive Mathematical Modeling (EIM2)

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In this session, we share our conceptualization of an Equitable and Interactive Mathematical Modeling (EIM2) program that positions students as decision-makers in their own learning. Students engage in equitable mathematical modeling, a process of using mathematics to analyze and quantify scenarios through a lens of equity. The program involves collaborations with middle school students, a professional learning community series with their mathematics teachers, and the creation of a free online platform that hosts EIM2 modules.

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Doing the Math with Paraeducators: Enhancing and Expanding and Sustaining a Professional Development Model in PreK to Grade 3 Math Classrooms

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Working in two high-needs urban school districts, Doing the Math refines and researches a mathematics professional development model for paraeducators in grades PK-3 through ongoing PD designed to enhance pedagogical content knowledge and mathematics teaching self-efficacy. This work also provides opportunities to support pathways to teaching, address the critical teacher shortage and diversify the teaching pool. Program sustainability is supported through integration in PD of classroom teachers, mathematics coaches, and use of PD graduated paraeducators.

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Developing and Investigating Unscripted Mathematics Videos

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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.

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Developing a Modeling Orientation to Science: Teaching and Learning Variability and Change in Ecosystems (Collaborative Research: Peake)

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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.

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Design and Development of a K-12 STEM Observation Protocol (Collaborative Research: Dare)

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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.

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DataX: Exploring Justice-Oriented Data Science with Secondary School Students

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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.

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Connecting Elementary Mathematics Teaching to Real-World Issues (Collaborative Research: Thanheiser)

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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.

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