Scaling Up SimCalc:
Professional Development
for Integrating Technology to Teach More Complex Mathematics
(Phase I)
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Responding to the widely held concern that U.S. students are less likely than their
international counterparts to master advanced mathematics, an interdisciplinary team
from three complementary research institutions proposes to investigate (a) the capability
of technology to support learning of complex and conceptually difficult mathematics if
(b) a comprehensive approach to professional development is available to teachers.
Specifically, this implementation research proposal focuses on exploring the robustness
of replacement-unit teacher professional development for enabling teachers to develop
middle school students' mathematical proficiency with the concept of “rate of change”
using innovative curriculum and technology. The particular innovation to be used,
SimCalc, is one instance of the class of mathematics learning technologies that have
shown much promise in enabling students to master complex and conceptually difficult
mathematics earlier in the curricular sequence. The planned teacher professional
development focuses on the mathematical content, how students learn, and integrating
technology into classroom practices. There is empirical evidence to support scaling up
this intervention, but as yet no experimental support for robustness of the innovation
when implemented by teachers who vary in representative ways.
In the proposed Phase I, the team will pilot our Phase II design. In so doing, we will
develop and test organizational resources required for a Phase II implementation study.
We will also refine the methodological features of our Phase II design, including
developing an instrument for measuring growth of the “rate of change” concept that
builds on items and tasks from national reference examinations. We will further identify
critical variables and conditions by using NAEP and Texas data.
In a subsequent Phase II proposal, the team would undertake a controlled experiment
using random assignment. The team would select a group of Texas middle school
teachers using a random selection approach wherein the probabilities of selection have
been calculated to obtain a sample that exhibits suitable variation among variables that
we believe may be important to the outcome. The researchers would then measure
outcomes with content assessment developed in Phase I, and established measures of
teachers' beliefs, classroom practices, and comfort with technology integration.
Results would speak to the critical policy questions about the degree to which research
can support changes to national standards, curricula, and assessments to incorporate more
complex mathematics earlier in the curricular sequence. Results would also speak
immediately to a wide array of implementation projects, such as Math/Science
Partnerships and curriculum revision projects. Many of these projects would like to
incorporate technology-based instructional materials but are unsure whether
implementation is robust across a range of teachers.
This is a subcontract under SRI's Scaling Up SimCalc Project
funded by the National Science Foundation, Grant #REC-0228515.
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