Systems Reform

Demands, Tensions, and Resources When Implementing Ambitious Mathematics

In this article, we explore demands and tensions involved when schools implement ambitious mathematics teaching (AMT). Following a description of a framework that distinguishes between internal and external demands, we characterize the tension between these in terms of alignment, balance, and buffering, which collectively speak to coherence. We then describe AMT and how it represents a departure from traditional mathematics instruction found in most countries.

Author/Presenter

Jeffrey Choppin

Christine Green

William Zahner

Year
2024
Short Description

In this article, we explore demands and tensions involved when schools implement ambitious mathematics teaching (AMT).

Promoting Students’ Informal Inferential Reasoning Through Arts-Integrated Data Literacy Education

Purpose

Author/Presenter

Camillia Matuk

Ralph Vacca

Anna Amato

Megan Silander

Kayla DesPortes

Peter J. Woods

Marian Tes

Year
2023
Short Description

Arts-integration is a promising approach to building students’ abilities to create and critique arguments with data, also known as informal inferential reasoning (IIR). However, differences in disciplinary practices and routines, as well as school organization and culture, can pose barriers to subject integration. The purpose of this study is to describe synergies and tensions between data science and the arts, and how these can create or constrain opportunities for learners to engage in IIR.

Promoting Students’ Informal Inferential Reasoning Through Arts-Integrated Data Literacy Education

Purpose

Author/Presenter

Camillia Matuk

Ralph Vacca

Anna Amato

Megan Silander

Kayla DesPortes

Peter J. Woods

Marian Tes

Year
2023
Short Description

Arts-integration is a promising approach to building students’ abilities to create and critique arguments with data, also known as informal inferential reasoning (IIR). However, differences in disciplinary practices and routines, as well as school organization and culture, can pose barriers to subject integration. The purpose of this study is to describe synergies and tensions between data science and the arts, and how these can create or constrain opportunities for learners to engage in IIR.

Promoting Students’ Informal Inferential Reasoning Through Arts-Integrated Data Literacy Education

Purpose

Author/Presenter

Camillia Matuk

Ralph Vacca

Anna Amato

Megan Silander

Kayla DesPortes

Peter J. Woods

Marian Tes

Year
2023
Short Description

Arts-integration is a promising approach to building students’ abilities to create and critique arguments with data, also known as informal inferential reasoning (IIR). However, differences in disciplinary practices and routines, as well as school organization and culture, can pose barriers to subject integration. The purpose of this study is to describe synergies and tensions between data science and the arts, and how these can create or constrain opportunities for learners to engage in IIR.

Policy Translation in Assemblage: Networked Actors Mediating Science Teachers’ Policy Play

Educational policies exist as part of complex systems of many policies, all of which science teachers must make sense before using in practice. Using Actor-Network Theory to view policy translation in assemblages, we examine how networked actors mediate teachers’ policy play. Drawing on ethnographic methods and post-structural analytic tools, we identified four mediating actors: espoused practices, learning events, administrator relationships, and communities of practice.

Author/Presenter

Kathryn M. Bateman

Scott McDonald

Year
2023
Short Description

Educational policies exist as part of complex systems of many policies, all of which science teachers must make sense before using in practice. Using Actor-Network Theory to view policy translation in assemblages, we examine how networked actors mediate teachers’ policy play.

Leading for Justice, Leading for Learning: Conceptualizing Urban School Leadership for Antiracist Mathematics Teaching and Learning

Urban school leaders can support mathematics instruction that acknowledges and sustains students’ racialized and cultured ways of knowing and being. Yet, leadership for racial justice is often discussed separately from instructional improvement. In this conceptual inquiry, we investigate how leadership can integrate antiracist practices into teaching and learning.

Author/Presenter

Jessica G. Rigby

Stephanie Forman

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2023
Short Description

Urban school leaders can support mathematics instruction that acknowledges and sustains students’ racialized and cultured ways of knowing and being. Yet, leadership for racial justice is often discussed separately from instructional improvement. In this conceptual inquiry, we investigate how leadership can integrate antiracist practices into teaching and learning.

Making Sense of Sensemaking: Understanding How K–12 Teachers and Coaches React to Visual Analytics

With the spread of learning analytics (LA) dashboards in K-12 schools, educators are increasingly expected to make sense of data to inform instruction. However, numerous features of school settings, such as specialized vantage points of educators, may lead to different ways of looking at data. This observation motivates the need to carefully observe and account for the ways data sensemaking occurs, and how it may differ across K-12 professional roles.

Author/Presenter

Fabio C. Campos

June Ahn

Daniela K. DiGiacomo

Ha Nguyen

Maria Hays

Year
2021
Short Description

With the spread of learning analytics (LA) dashboards in K-12 schools, educators are increasingly expected to make sense of data to inform instruction. However, numerous features of school settings, such as specialized vantage points of educators, may lead to different ways of looking at data. This observation motivates the need to carefully observe and account for the ways data sensemaking occurs, and how it may differ across K-12 professional roles. Our mixed-methods study reports on interviews and think-aloud sessions with middle-school mathematics teachers and instructional coaches from four districts in the United States.

A Model for Developing Sustainable Math Instructional Leadership

The Responsive Math Teaching project has been developing and refining a model for the development of mathematics instructional leadership in a network of 13 urban under-resourced elementary schools. The project is a research-practice partnership with Learning Network 2 in the School District of Philadelphia, a city where more than 80% of students live below federal poverty levels in a state with some of the largest gaps in the country between wealthy and poor districts. The RMT project is built around five core components:

Author/Presenter

The Responsive Math Teaching Project Team

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2021
Short Description

The Responsive Math Teaching project has been developing and refining a model for the development of mathematics instructional leadership in a network of 13 urban under-resourced elementary schools. This report summarizes the core elements of this model for developing sustainable math instructional leadership for systemic change at the district level.

The Anthropology of Educational Policy: Ethnographic Inquiries into Policy as Sociocultural Practice





Author/Presenter

Angelina E. Castagno

Teresa McCarty

Lead Organization(s)
Year
2018
Short Description

This book provides a single "go to" source on the disciplinary history, theoretical framework, methodology, and empirical applications of the anthropology of education policy across a range of education topics, policy debates, and settings.

Measuring Science Instructional Practice: A Survey Tool for the Age of NGSS

Ambitious efforts are taking place to implement a new vision for science education in the United States, in both Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-adopted states and those states creating their own, often related, standards. Inservice and pre-service teacher educators are involved in supporting teacher shifts in practice toward the new standards. With these efforts, it will be important to document shifts in science instruction toward the goals of NGSS and broader science education reform.

Author/Presenter

Kathryn N. Hayes

Christine S. Lee

Rachelle DiStefano

Dawn O’Connor

Jeffery C. Seitz

Year
2016
Short Description

This article describes the process of developing and validating a Science Instructional Practices survey instrument that is appropriate for NGSS and other related science standards.