Round table Discussion
From Kaput Center Wiki
Gerry Goldin - Affect and Motivation – Serious in Urban schools. Half the adult population have a fear of mathematics. Not doing things systematically to address this.
Teresa Rojana – Focus on Algebraic thinking with digital technology. Involved in big implementation projects in Mexico. Research outcomes became the resources for implementation. Implementing one model in one context – tracking learning trajectories. How to use Representational Infrastructure to make long-term decisions about the use of technology. Concerned in preservation of symbolic manipulation within digital technologies. What happens later in the long term evolution of mathematical thinking?
Jere Confrey – Tough time in math ed. Are we failing to change or are we trying to change too much? Focus on three things: 1. Vision, 2. Engagement, 3. Feedback. What types of activities engage students. Feedback needs to be insightful and relevant (vs generic assessment). Synthesis on Rational Number Reasoning – 6 areas. What is a learning trajectories? What is the right one, how are they linked, how many are needed? Delta project – building diagnostic measures to go along side the learning trajectories (building on the synthesis
Luis Moreno – two main foci: 1. Integrity of knowledge in schools 2. Loss of meaning in mathematical knowledge – and new ways of representing mathematical knowledge One way to analyze this is to look at the history of the evolution of sign systems & representations Role of digital technologies Develop a digital semiotic theory – moving from static to dynamic
Sara Dalton. Works in Kaput Center. Focused on working with teachers in MA, collecting data as part of a cluster-randomized trial (efficacy study) implementing SimCalc MW and connectivity. Impact on participation, fidelity of implementation.
Alan Maloney – works with Jere. Background in Science. Lot of discussion in new standards in North Carolina.
Nancy Ares – focused on what occurs in the classroom in using connected classrooms. Issues of participation. Non-dominant students (cultural) role changes – cultural relevance. Works in Rochester, NY – major poverty in schools. Wants to focus on language use, and patterns in these classrooms and how these resonate with cultures in their society. Role of context – what do they bring from outside into
Corey Brady – Interest in Design. Technologies are becoming infrastructural but afraid that these are being used for what they are, vs changing the environment. What choices do teachers have to make in order to use interesting new technologies? Study of text.
Annie Selden – How do people do things in mathematics, moment-to-moment decisions, consciousness, affect (particularly feelings), proof & procedural knowledge (from moment-to-moment)?
John Selden - Work that begins with questions from William James. Work with graduate students in mathematics (beginning, weaker). Questions of consciousness, and conscious control.
Jim Middleton - Professor in the Division of Curriculum and Instruction at Arizona State University. Research focuses on motivation, children's mathematical thinking and technologies applied to the teaching and learning of mathematics; also serves as Associate Director of the Center for Research on Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology
Bill Penuel - Director of Evaluation Research at SRI. Research interests include classroom network technologies and their implementation. Has worked with or is working with TI and the Math Forward initiative.
WS - UT Austin. Math and change. Designing technology for a group space. Systemic reform.
The Computing Research Association in 2003 came up with 5 grand challenges for computing research for the 21st Century. These are:
GRAND CHALLENGE 1. Create a Ubiquitous Safety.Net
GRAND CHALLENGE 2. Build a Team of Your Own
GRAND CHALLENGE 3. Provide a Teacher for Every Learner
GRAND CHALLENGE 4. Build Systems You Can Count On
GRAND CHALLENGE 5. Conquer System Complexity
http://www.cra.org/reports/gc.systems.pdf
It would be interesting if the mathematics education community could pose for itself a similar set of challenges, particularly as we consider the impact of technologies, information explosion, social organization and the like. The field, in my opinion, needs to develop some common research directions that we can make collective progress on. The time of the individual investigator outside a collective program is just about up. The pace of innovation is just too fast for an individual investigator to be responsive. Ways of combining data, methods, etc. across project will become vital if we are to improve mathematics education through empirical research and development.
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One manifestation of Roy Pea's presentation on Grand Challenge Problems for education:
pdf version: www.g1to1.org/resources/doc2003/RoyPea.pdf
