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.

Improving the Implementation of Rigorous Instructional Materials in Middle-Grades Mathematics: Developing a System of Practical Measures and Routines (Collaborative Research: Ahn, Cobb, Jackson, and Smith)

Principal Investigator:

This project has developed practical measures, and associated routines and data representations, to support the implementation of instructional improvement strategies (e.g.,coaching) in middle-grades mathematics teaching. We will describe our classroom measures, which assess students' perspectives of key aspects of the classroom learning environment; the contributions they have made to our partner districts’ improvement efforts; and how we have attended to validity in the design and use of practical measures.

Target Audience:

Exploratory Evidence on the Factors that Relate to Elementary School Science Learning Gains Among English Language Learners

Principal Investigator:

This study provides evidence on the confluence of school, classroom, teacher, and student inputs that shape elementary school science learning for English learners. The study explores the relationship between (1) science inputs (time on science, content covered, availability of lab resources, teacher training in science instruction, etc.), and (2) EL-specific inputs (classroom language use, EL instructional models, teacher certification/training, availability of EL support staff, etc.) for a nationally representative set of kindergarten through fifth graders.

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Target Audience: