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Eric.ed.gov – Eisenhower Pre-Service Teacher Education Project, Higher Education Consortium Region III. Final Report.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The Eisenhower Pre-Service Teacher Education Project was developed by the University of Central Florida, the five community colleges in Region III of the Higher Education Consortium, and the private college and universities in the same region to design curriculum changes to improve the preparation of elementary and secondary math and science teachers. Faculty members at participating institutions developed projects designed to both improve the math and science content knowledge of pre-service teachers, as well as teaching methods in undergraduate math and science courses. Funded projects included the following: (1) the introduction of “hands-on” activities into college Astronomy and Oceanography courses; (2) the identification of potential K-12 pre-service teachers during their freshman and sophomore years to improve their math and science backgrounds; (3) the development of a field… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Understanding the Meaning of Rural within a Middle School Mathematics Professional Development and Research Project in Nebraska. Working Paper No. 40

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Improving teacher quality in P-12 mathematics is a national need, and many universities and schools are working to address it. With the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF), twelve math and science institutes across the country are helping P-12 teachers strengthen their capacity to support students’ learning. These NSF Institutes operate under the leadership of STEM university faculty, representing colleges of arts and science as well as colleges of education. The strategy is to build capacity by improving teachers’ content knowledge, pedagogy, and leadership skills. One such venture is The Math in the Middle Institute Partnership (M2) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). As part of their efforts to understand the place of rural in M2, the research team systematically interviewed the 63 rural participants from… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Staff Development for Pedagogues in Bilingual Math and Science Programs, 1993-94. Final Evaluation Report. OER Report.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Staff Development for Pedagogues in Bilingual Math and Science provided two thematically-based workshops to 40 New York City science teachers who taught students of limited English proficiency (LEP) citywide. Workshops emphasized successful teaching strategies as well as psychological aspects involved in teaching LEP students. The project also provided research articles and monographs about the latest techniques in teaching science. Analysis of participants’ responses to a questionnaire found that almost all respondents were highly satisfied with all aspects of the workshops: content, mode of preservation, and materials used. In addition, although the required data were unavailable, it appeared that the students of participating teachers performed as well as similar students citywide on the Regents Competency Tests (RCTs) in science. The project met its objectives for staff satisfaction with… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Assessing Academic Rigor in Mathematics Instruction: The Development of the Instructional Quality Assessment Toolkit. CSE Technical Report 672

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The development of an assessment tool to measure the quality of instruction is necessary to provide an informative accountability system in education. Such a tool should be capable of characterizing the quality of teaching and learning that occurs in actual classrooms, schools, or districts. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of the Academic Rigor in Mathematics (AR-Math) rubrics of the Instructional Quality Assessment Toolkit and to share the findings from a small pilot study conducted in the Spring of 2003. The study described in this paper examined the instructional quality of mathematics programs in elementary classrooms in two urban school districts. The study assessed the reliability of the AR-Math rubrics, the ability of the AR-Math rubrics to distinguish important difference between districts, the… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – A Final Case Study of SCALE Activities at California State University, Northridge: How Institutional Context Influenced a K-20 STEM Education Change Initiative. WCER Working Paper No. 2009-5

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This qualitative case study reports on processes and outcomes of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded System-Wide Change for All Learners and Educators (SCALE) project at the California State University, Northridge (CSUN). It addresses a critical challenge in studying systemic reform in complex organizations: the lack of methodologies that incorporate technical, social, cultural, and cognitive elements. Guiding questions include (a) how the institutional context influenced the project, (b) whether project activities affected science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) instruction, interdisciplinary collaboration on preservice programs, and inter-institutional collaboration on in-service programs, and (c) if and how change initiatives are accepted and incorporated. In-depth interviews (N = 34), relevant documents, and observation data were collected in 2006 and 2007. Findings identified several factors that supported and several that inhibited achievement… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – An Evaluation of an Innovative Use of Computers and Volunteers in 7th Grade Math Instruction.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This paper summarizes a formative evaluation of a developmental project designed to maximize the potential use of computers in mathematics instruction through the use of volunteers. The project was conducted using a 7th-grade class at an intermediate school in Utah. Data were analyzed for 12 students in a special class for students not having the necessary basic mathematics skills to enroll in a regular class. Students used math computer lab twice a week. The volunteers determined what mathematics skills each student needed to practice by referring to the student files, determined what software program would be appropriate for the student, and managed all the necessary student data. Both quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed for: (1) achievement; (2) attitude about mathematics; (3) mathematics anxiety; (4) study habits;… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Evaluation of the Effectiveness and Implementation of a Math Manipulatives Project.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This paper reports on a project to enrich high school algebra and geometry programs through the use of manipulatives. The evaluation design utilized qualitative and quantitative methodology to determine the effectiveness and impact of training with manipulatives on 40 high school teachers. The final evaluation was based on: (1) review of the program proposal; (2) participation in the planning process for the workshops with the project staff; (3) observation of the methodology of the trainers and provisions for participant involvement in each of the workshop sessions; (4) group discussion of classroom implementation strategies; (5) observation of the use of manipulatives in the participants’ classrooms; and (6) review of participants’ self-reports of student utilization and response to the manipulatives. The project was successful in addressing the stated objectives… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Conditions for Scale and Sustainability. Brief Four

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Math experts developed Formative Assessment Lessons that teachers can incorporate throughout the year’s curriculum. Both tools target the “instructional core.” A study by Research for Action (RFA) examining the first year of piloting the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) and Math Design Collaborative (MDC) tools (2010-11) found evidence of initial success in tool use indicated by teachers’ perceptions that the tools positively influenced teacher practice. In the second year of the Initiative (2011-12), tool use grew within and across sites. The focus of the research has expanded accordingly to include an analysis of how the tools are being introduced to additional classrooms, schools and districts, and what strategies are most effective in sustaining and strengthening tool use. This brief focuses on efforts to scale up and sustain broader… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Revising the Community of Inquiry Framework for the Analysis of One-to-One Online Learning Relationships

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In online learning research, the theoretical community of inquiry framework has been used extensively to analyze processes of inquiry among learners and instructors within a community. This paper examines a special case of community of inquiry consisting of only one learner and one instructor. Together they engage in an online coaching discourse to form a relationship of inquiry. Within these relationships, coachees pass through processes of practical inquiry process while a coach supports the process. In this study, a framework and coding scheme were developed for use in a transcript coding procedure including 3,109 messages from an online coaching case in math for K-12 students. It is found that the elements of cognitive, teaching, and social presence, as well as the newly proposed emotional presence, which outlines… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Influences on Beginning Teachers’ Literacy-Related Instructional Beliefs: A Longitudinal Case-Study Comparison of Five Non-Traditional Math and Science Teachers.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This paper reports on a study to document influences on five beginning mathematics and science teachers’ instructional beliefs after a preservice methods course in secondary literacy. The participants were former military officers who had selected teaching as a second career. The study looked at: the teachers’ beliefs about uses of literacy in their content instruction from preservice through the second teaching year; influences the teachers perceived as affecting their beliefs; and how and why the teachers’ beliefs about literacy in their content instruction changed or remained constant over the 3-year period. Results showed: all five teachers’ beliefs had been influenced by the methods course; the teachers’ instructional beliefs became more elaborate and specific during their student teaching and first year of teaching; as student teachers, they were… Continue Reading