Todos 2021 Presentation

Posted on June 22, 2021 by evathanheiser

First live radio interview

Posted on June 15, 2021 by evathanheiser

If the World Were a Village

Posted on June 14, 2021 by evathanheiser

Video presented at PME-NA 2020

Introduction Video to PME-NA Working Group on Teaching Math for Social Justice in Content and Methods Courses.

Posted on May 26, 2021 by evathanheiser

Goals:

There are three goals for this new working group:

To create a community of mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) who are (or are interested in) collaboratively teaching mathematics for social justice (TMfSJ) in their university content and/or methods classes.
To collaboratively select/develop/modify TMfSJ tasks and implement those in mathematics content/methods classes.
To research the implementation of TMfSJ tasks in content and methods classes.

Organizers

Eva Thanheiser, Portland State University, evat@pdx.edu
Frances K Harper, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, francesharper@utk.edu
Christa Jackson, Iowa State University, jacksonc@iastate.edu
Naomi Jessup, Georgia State University, njessup@gsu.edu
Crystal Kalinec-Craig, University of Texas, San Antonio, crystal.kalinec-craig@utsa.edu
Cathery Yeh, Chapman University, yeh@chapman.edu
Amanda Sugimoto, Portland State University, Asugimoto2@pdx.edu

NSF Grant funded

Posted on May 12, 2021 by evathanheiser

PI: Collaborative Research: Connecting Elementary Mathematics Teaching to Real-World Issues with Amanda Sugimoto (PSU co-PI), Matthew Felton-Koestler (Ohio University grant PI), Courtney Koestler (Ohio University co-PI)

Award: $1,926,132 $940,534.00 (PSU) and $985,598.00 (Ohio University),

Funded for 2021-2024

ABSTRACT

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. This project will engage students and teachers in rich, real-world math tasks; will support future teachers and mathematics educators in adapting, designing, and implementing similar tasks; and will provide a basis for further research on the most effective ways to design and implement real-world tasks in the mathematics classroom.

The three goals of the Connecting Elementary Mathematics to the World project are: (1) To explore how mathematics teachers adapt, design, and enact tasks that connect mathematics to the real world. We will study the teaching practices of the project team as they engage in this work in two summer camps and in elementary classrooms at two sites. (2) To develop a collection of exemplar tasks and rich records of practice for each task. These records of practice will detail the mathematical and real-world learning goals, background knowledge needed for both goals, common student responses, and videos or vignettes of the task in progress. A team of six teachers at two sites will be recruited to collaborate with the team throughout the project. Teachers will provide input and feedback on the design of, appropriateness of, and relevance of the tasks and the support materials needed to implement the real-world tasks. Initial tasks will be field tested with elementary students and additional tasks will be developed for subsequent week-long summer camps and for teaching in elementary classrooms. (3) To research both the development and enactment of these tasks. We will develop a theoretical framework for creating and implementing real-world tasks that can inform future practice and research in this area. The research products of this project will result in (a) an understanding of effective teaching and design practices for connecting mathematics to real-world issues, (b) a theoretical framework of how these practices are interconnected, and (c) how these practices differ from practices when teaching typical school mathematics tasks.

The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.

This award reflects NSF’s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation’s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2101463&HistoricalAwards=falseLINK to NSF

PSU Press Release: https://www.pdx.edu/liberal-arts-sciences/news/psu-professors-win-1m-grant-connect-math-teaching-real-world-issues

NSF Grant funded!

Posted on May 12, 2021 by evathanheiser

PI: Collaborative Research: Developing and Researching K-12 Teacher Leaders Enacting Anti-bias Mathematics Education with Ruth Heaton (Teachers Development Group co-PI), Rebekah Elliott (Oregon State University, co-PI), and Cathery Yeh (Chapman University, co-PI).

Award: $2,735,901 $640,568 (PSU), $654,011 (Chapman), and $820,320 (Teachers Development Group), and $621,002 (Oregon State University)

Funded for 2021 – 2025

ABSTRACT

There is increased recognition that engaging all students in learning mathematics requires an explicit focus on anti-bias mathematics teaching. Teachers, even with positive intentions, have biases, causing them to treat students differently and impacting how they distribute students’ opportunities to learn in K-12 mathematics classrooms. Research is needed to examine models of mathematics teacher professional development that explicitly addresses bias reduction. The goal of this project is to study the design and development of community-centered, job-embedded professional development for classroom teachers that supports bias reduction. The project team will partner with three school districts serving racially, ethnically, linguistically, and socio-economically diverse communities, for a two-year professional development program. The aim is to reduce bias through: analyzing and designing mathematics teaching with colleagues, students, and families to create classrooms and schools based on community-centered mathematics; engaging in anti-bias teaching routines; and building relationships with parents, caretakers, and community members. The project team will study teacher leader professional development, including the professional development model, framework, and tools, along with what teacher leaders across district contexts and grade-levels take up and use in their instructional practice. This will potentially have wider implications for supporting more equitable mathematics teaching and leadership. Project activities, resources, and tools will be shared with the broader community of mathematics educators and researchers for use in other contexts.

The goal of this two-phase, design based research project is to iteratively design and research teacher leaders’ (TLs) participation in community-centered, job-embedded professional development and investigate their subsequent impact on classrooms, schools, and districts. The project builds on the existing Math Studio professional development model to create a Community Centered Math Studio, integrating the Anti-bias Mathematics Education Framework into the work. The project seeks to understand how the professional development model supports the development of teacher leaders’ knowledge, dispositions, and practices for teaching and leading anti-bias mathematics education, and how teachers’ subsequent classroom practice can cultivate students’ mathematical engagement, discourse, and interests. The project will measure aspects of teacher knowledge and classroom practice by integrating existing classroom observation rubrics and STEM interest surveys to assess the impact on teacher classroom practice and student outcomes. The project will engage 12 TLs and approximately 60 additional teachers working with those TLs in two years of professional development using the Community Centered Math Studio Model to support anti-bias mathematics teaching. Data will be collected for all teachers related to their participation in the professional learning, with six teachers being followed for additional data collection and in-depth case studies. The project’s outcomes will contribute to theories of how TLs build adaptive expertise for teaching and leading to reduce bias in classrooms, departments, schools, and districts. In addition, the project will contribute new and adapted research instruments on anti-bias teaching and leading. The research outcomes will add to the growing research base that describes the nature of equitable mathematics teaching in K-12 classrooms and increases access to meaningful mathematics for students, teachers, and communities.

This award reflects NSF’s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation’s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2101667&HistoricalAwards=false

NSF Website

PSU Press Release: https://www.pdx.edu/math/news/psu-math-ed-professor-gets-nsf-grant-develop-anti-bias-training-teachers