Day 2: Complexity-Breakout-Group
From Kaput Center Wiki
Questions for breakout groups:
SH: What is the nature of our data in trying to have significant impact in growing the field and how can we share and maintain a community?
Walter: What is our agenda with data?
Jim:
- What are data? Informatics approach. Fundamental in a digital age.
- At what level does data become useful?
Data needs to be:
- Re-useable
- Shareable
- Modifiable
- Transportable
[edit] John & Annie Selden
John: class design experiment for graduate students on proof and real analysis supplementary course
- Collect video (class presentation, critique, and discussion, in-class or tutoring sessions)
- Field notes
- Video data of John & Annie analyzing the class (video debrief) Possibly for graduate students
- Pre-test (not satisfied with) & post-test
- Deborah: the not satisfied piece gets lost in the sharing
- Not satisfied because of varying levels
- Is it satisfycing (“good enough”)
[edit] Dick Lesh
What are data? What are evidence?
Some of the evidence is not data (Lesh still thinking about this point) Some of Lesh’s conclusions
Develop models of teachers’ or kids’ models. And teachers interacting with kids.
Q: Is our model a scientific model?
Multi-tiered design studies; kids in situations to develop mathematics models (what interpretation systems are they developing)
What you gave them to interpret & interpretation development – which is why study teachers and students & why it is multi-tiered
Research team is a third tier – developing models of teachers developing models of kids’ developing models.
Evidence produced at all three levels – TOOLS
Ways of thinking sheet – how the teacher is thinking about students’ thinking
Test and re-test to revise thinking
If our model got better, what evidence do we have? Evidence and support of why you went in the direction you did – moving target
For kids: model-eliciting activities (local conceptual development – 45 min. develop a better model to model something) Has video.
Transfers across time and horizontally
Transfer interpretation system vs. rules vs. principles
Rule is not essence of mathematics – the interpretation system is the essence of mathematics.
How do these systems develop for kids and teachers.
Problem solver who is an individual and problem solver who is part of a team.
Idea development does not occur on a path – get constructed. Idea development is an ecosystem.
Data:
- Evidence in support of claim that models do not develop on a path. Transcripts.
- More generally: engage teachers to help study along what dimensions the models develop.
- Teachers need to produce how thinking evolved and evidence to support why this is better than where they started.
- Conclusions are the teachers’ evidence and what researchers did to elicit this.
Wants to share: Design specs, prompts, and requirements documents
Ideas do not develop on a path. Problem solving is a goal activity where you have to adjust/ refine your process
Backwards it looks linear – but that does not show how a student came to this.
[edit] Deborah Tatar
Scale-Up Study
Year 1: RCT – DT & IT (7th grade – 95 teachers)
Year 2: 7th grade
Year 3: 8th grade
Hypothesis: a large amount, and wide variety, of teachers can learn to teach students using SimCalc.
Data collected:
- Background data on teachers and schools
- Data from applications
- Data from DROP teachers
- Expressed attitudinal data
- MKT data – taken multiple times
- Semi-structured teacher interview data (51 min) – transcribed
- 44 video taped and field note observations
- Year 2: 6 case studies of teachers (from VT) in class every day, teacher interview, census data
- Student pre- and post-test data
- Teacher classroom logs
Findings:
- Large student gains
- Large effect sizes – 0.83
- Wide distribution in how effective it was.
- Enterprise is not to come up with an overarching model for success
- Student level outcomes, and class level outcomes
- No evidence that racial matching had an effect on student gain
- Teachers made instructional decisions
- Model of technology adoption
- Model of teacher influences and how use it (inferred)
- Don’t have a deep understanding of the math they are teaching
Q: How do you share data in your own project?
- Database for students and database for teachers
- Flat database
- Measured naturally varying phenomena
- Teachers influenced by the fact that they are in a study
Jessica Pierson: 7 kinds of teacher responses to student-initiated questions -> this can predict student GAINS!
Lesh: if you don’t measure systemic things, you won’t see transfer.
Deborah: spent so much money on building the assessment tools. Is this something that could be shared? Since so much money and effort and work have gone into this effort?
Jim: System is flawed Have to change the conditions Have to change the structure
By enforcing standards: Teacher thought: I’m responsible for covering material – if I say it in class, I’m done.
What role does SimCalc have in the current role?
Wait-time (Rowe) has shown to have impact on learning – but this is not common in classrooms!
Jim:
What discipline does it take to change deeply held beliefs, norms, practice with something like SimCalc versus turning it into play?
- Working within systems and what place things have, if any
- Change system and restructure the system – hypothetically optimal
- Do something in parallel – informal science ed research
Texas math teachers:
- 45% of Whites are male
- 55% of Blacks are male
- 65% of Hispanics are male
Who are you getting your teachers? Who goes into teaching and why are they making their decision? Obama wants to address this as well.
Teacher proof - NCLB is not helping
