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Eric.ed.gov – A Summary Report of the Instructional Effectiveness of the “Harcourt Math Program.” Technical Report Number 104.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This report describes one of a series of pilot studies that were conducted to evaluate the instructional effectiveness of the Harcourt Math Program. Harcourt School Publishers (HSP) contracted with the Educational Research Institute of America (ERIA) to conduct a series of independent pilot studies to evaluate the effectiveness of the Harcourt Math Program. HSP sought out volunteer teachers to participate in the study, the Harcourt Department of Test Services scored the standardized tests, and ERIA conducted the study and analyzed the data that were collected. The study described in this report was conducted during the spring of the 1999-2000 school year. Research questions included: (1) Is the Harcourt Math Program instructionally effective?; and (2) Do selected chapters significantly increase students’ understanding of key math skills, concepts, and… Continue Reading

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tandfonline.com – Profiles of readiness: Using a blended framework to explore what it takes for faculty to be ready to change instructional practice

tandfonline.com har udgivet en rapport under søgningen “Teacher Education Mathematics”: Abstract Abstract In answer to calls for research about professional change, this study addressed the question: What is involved in college science faculty readiness for change in instructional practice? The setting was a professional development experience in oceanography/marine science and paleoclimatology among 32 faculty from 2- and 4-year colleges. Ten of the 32 participated in interviews, and all provided survey responses and documents used in the study. Cycles of inductive analysis generated three example case stories to illustrate a new model for exploring faculty readiness for change in teaching. The model blends results from the health sciences on readiness for behavioral change with research on the personal, external, professional, and consequence domains of a professional change environment. The blended model… 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 – Evaluation of Instructional Model Applied to Functional Math. Project on Effective Computer Instruction for Effective Special Education, Prince George’s County Public Schools.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This study evaluated an instructional model entitled “Integrating Computer Software into the Functional Mathematics Curriculum: A Diagnostic Approach,” which was intended to prepare middle-school special education students for the Maryland Functional Mathematics Test. The model consisted of eight major components: pretests/posttests, diagnostic evaluations, domain directories, software matrix, software summaries, skill sheets, computer software, and miscellaneous materials. The model was evaluated by comparing math performance and attitudes of students who received instruction based on the model with those of matched control students, and by conducting interviews with teachers using the model. Analysis of scores of 26 experimental and 26 comparison subjects on the 9th-grade Maryland Functional Mathematics Test indicated that 27% of experimental subjects passed the test, while 12% of the comparison students passed. Interviews with 17 teachers… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Instructional Interactions of Kindergarten Mathematics Classrooms: Validating a Direct Observation Instrument

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In this paper, the authors report research focused directly on the validation of the Coding of Academic Teacher-Student interactions (CATS) direct observation instrument. They use classroom information gathered by the CATS instrument to better understand the potential mediating variables hypothesized to influence student achievement. Their study’s purpose is to gather the kinds of validity evidences that match the proposed interpretations and uses of the CATS instrument (Kane, 2008; Messick, 1995). Therefore, they first explore the content aspect of construct validity by collecting information about the content relevance and representativeness of the observation instrument (Messick, 1995). Second, concerned about the consistency of the observation data collected across a number of independent observers, they measure inter-observer agreement. Finally, they focus on the criterion-predictive aspect of construct validity and investigate… 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

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Eric.ed.gov – Instructional Multimedia in the Math Classroom and Beyond.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This paper is based on the reflections of a distance education (DE) mathematics instructor at Pellissippi State Technical Community College in Knoxville, Tennesee. In this DE classroom, 30 students were present with the instructor at the main campus, 8 students at a remote campus in Blount County, and 6 students in Knoxville. The link between the classrooms was made by Instructional Television Fixed Service technology, which connected the classrooms via two-way audio, but only one-way video. The typical class period was divided into two parts: a lecture delivered via a multimedia program using Macromedia Director; and discussion of homework problems that were solved in class using an overhead camera. Problems encountered in the classrooms included: (1) the teacher had to attend to the needs of students he… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Toward Instructional Reform in the Math Classroom: A Teacher’s Process of Change.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The reform movement in mathematics education calls for students to engage in problem solving, to discuss and communicate their thinking, and to develop meaningful understandings. This paper reports a case study of a fourth-grade class in line with the reform call, emphasizing the process of change the teacher experienced and the support she needed. The teacher in this study taught mathematics using the Cognitively Guided Instruction approach. Observations, interviews, and student assessments were collected. Reported are four phases of teacher change: (1) the teacher’s teaching and thinking at the beginning of the study; (2) learning, thinking, and stimulating the process of change; (3) learning from and helping individuals; and (4) building on children’s thinking in instruction. Contains 25 references. (MKR) Link til kilde

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Eric.ed.gov – Increasing Fourth Grade Math Achievement with Improved Instructional Strategies.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The purpose of this practicum was to increase motivation and self-confidence of grade four students in mathematics achievement. Measured were the increase in the number of students displaying mastery of the times-tables, increase in the number of students making a gain on a math post-test, and increase in the number of students liking mathematics. Administered to the students were a math attitude questionnaire and a math pretest on basic math skills to determine the students’ attitude toward math and to determine the students’ performance level. Mental Math activities, math games design contests, in-class competitions, grade level competition, computer, calculators, systematic reviews, student-teacher interaction, and projects were used to help increase students’ interest and to increase math achievement. This study includes the following chapters: (1) “Introduction”; (2) “Study… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Instructional Design-Based Research on Problem Solving Strategies

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The main goal of this study is to find out the effect of the instructional design method on the enhancement of problem solving abilities of students. Teaching sessions were applied to ten students who are in 11th grade, to teach them problem solving strategies which are working backwards, finding pattern, adopting a different point of view, solving a simpler analogous problem, extreme cases, make drawing, intelligent guessing and testing, accounting all possibilities, organizing data, logical reasoning. Our study based on one-on-one (teacher-experimenter and student) design experiments where we conduct teaching sessions with a small group of students to study in depth and detail. We designed sessions to teach high school students, problem-solving strategies in a ten-week long period. Before and after the application of instructional design, 12… Continue Reading