9713 Views (as of 05/2023)
  1. Alden Edson
  2. Research Assistant Professor
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Michigan State University
  1. KRISTEN BIEDA
  2. http://www.kbiedamathed.com
  3. Associate Professor
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. Michigan State University
  1. Chad Dorsey
  2. https://concord.org/about/staff/chad-dorsey
  3. President and CEO
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. Concord Consortium
  1. Nathan Kimball
  2. Curriculum Developer
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Concord Consortium
  1. Elizabeth Phillips
  2. Senior Academic Specialist
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  4. Michigan State University
Facilitators’
Choice

Enhancing Middle Grades Students' Capacity to Develop and Communicate Their M...

NSF Awards: 1620934

2019 (see original presentation & discussion)

Grades 6-8

The goal of the project is to design and test a digital curriculum platform to help middle school students deepen and make visible their understanding of mathematics through collaboration. In the digital collaborative platform, we have embedded the Connected Mathematics3 curriculum, a problem-based curriculum where students investigate big mathematical ideas through inquiry-oriented problem situations. The learning environment is designed to support students in making sense of mathematics with each other as they construct, manipulate, and interpret shared representations of mathematics in real time, in all phases of a lesson.

An important tool for students’ thinking during problem solving is students’ generated inscriptions. Inscriptions refer to external representations of thinking that exist in material form (e.g., text, drawings, graphs, tables) where meanings are publicly shared and negotiated among students. The digital collaborative learning environment supports students to construct inscriptions, share their thinking with others, access and incorporate others’ inscriptions, and track their conceptual growth of big mathematical ideas over time.

The development and research project is guided by three research questions: (1) What features of the digital learning environment help students to produce and refine inscriptions of their learning as they explore mathematics problems? (2) How does the construction, manipulation, and interpretation of inscriptions change over time? (3) Does evidence of student understanding of big ideas of mathematics become more sophisticated given sustained classroom-based engagement with inscriptions?

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Discussion from the 2019 STEM for All Video Showcase (40 posts)
  • Icon for: Alden Edson

    Alden Edson

    Lead Presenter
    Research Assistant Professor
    May 12, 2019 | 05:21 p.m.

    We hope you enjoy our video featuring a digital collaborative platform. The online platform helps middle school students deepen and make visible their understanding of mathematics. Students investigate big mathematical ideas through inquiry-oriented problem situations using the Connected Mathematics curriculum. We are leveraging the unique affordances of technology for 21st century learners to build a “living” textbook where social, carefully structured mathematics learning can promote disciplinary engagement in mathematics. We invite you to make comments and ask questions.

     

  • Icon for: Jeffrey Choppin

    Jeffrey Choppin

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 12, 2019 | 07:59 p.m.

    I really enjoyed the video. How does the teacher facilitate public discussion around the shared artifacts?

  • Icon for: Nathan Kimball

    Nathan Kimball

    Co-Presenter
    Curriculum Developer
    May 13, 2019 | 08:12 a.m.

    Hi Jeffrey, Thanks for your comment. The CMP curriculum is designed to elicit from students as many ways of solving a problem as possible. With this in mind, we designed our environment to allow students to work individually, but also see what other students in their group of four are doing and borrow from them if they choose. Once individual students are ready, they can publish their work to the class. Then, throughout an activity and on a larger scale, throughout a unit, teachers work to refine students ideas through presentation of their work and discussion. The environment supports this refinement with individual "Learning Logs" where students bring together their more refined ideas. There are multiple ways students and teachers can share student work. Depending on the available classroom technology, individual students may project their work directly. Alternatively, teachers may project student work or their Learning Logs. Most often in the classroom, I've seen teachers pull work for presentation that illustrates different, but equally valid ways of solving problems.

     
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    Kenia Wiedemann
  • Icon for: William Zahner

    William Zahner

    Researcher
    May 12, 2019 | 11:20 p.m.

    I also enjoyed your video. One thing that caught my attention was the idea that students can find an "on-ramp" to participation through seeing classmates' work. One technical question I have is can students write equations or make annotations on diagrams in the environment?

  • Icon for: Nathan Kimball

    Nathan Kimball

    Co-Presenter
    Curriculum Developer
    May 13, 2019 | 08:24 a.m.

    Hi William,

    Presently, the environment allows rules to be written in tables such that a given value for (say) x will generate a value of y. Tables and graphs may be "connected" so as to present the data in the table. In addition, linear equations with their line may be created directly in a graph. (In the seventh grade curriculum that we have been working with only linear functions appear.) Any object in a graph (point, shape, line, etc.) may be annotated with a movable "call out" style comment.  

     
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    Kenia Wiedemann
  • Icon for: Kathy Perkins

    Kathy Perkins

    Researcher
    May 13, 2019 | 01:05 a.m.

    Really nice work! I'm so excited to not only see the focus on integrating the power of digital tools, but also on the ability to create new opportunities for social engagement and discourse around the mathematics through the digital environment. It's great to hear the increased in participation of diverse students, have you been measuring that directly? And if so, what tools do you use to look at participation? And have you looked to see if there has been any impact on student learning from the addition of the digital tools? 

    Also - on a personal note - my kids will be in Connected Math 6th and 7th grade next year, are their opportunities for teachers outside of the study to use these tools?

  • Icon for: Amit Sharma

    Amit Sharma

    Graduate Student
    May 13, 2019 | 01:39 p.m.

    Dear Kathy,

    Thanks for your encouraging comments.I am a graduate student at Michigan State University and have been involved with this project since its inception.

    The issue of measuring student participation and its impact on learning is, as you indicate, a tricky one. We are trying to focus on Engle and Conant's (2002) framework on Productive Disciplinary Engagement (PDE) as a theoretical lens to measure the effectiveness of the digital environment. While we are not pursuing quantifiable causal effects on learning, we are attempting to measure and document changes in productive disciplinary engagement of the students. Our initial observational, interview and survey data (from students and teachers) are very promising.

    I am really glad to know that your kids will be CMP classrooms next year and am confident that they will have a great learning experience. Regarding accessing the tools, unfortunately, we don't have them up for general access, as yet. 

  • Icon for: Ellen Metzger

    Ellen Metzger

    K-12 Teacher
    May 14, 2019 | 09:03 a.m.

    Great video. I love that students who might normally be discouraged from getting started on a problem have a way to enter through digital collaboration. We are also using CMP and would love to have access to the tools! 

  • Icon for: Amit Sharma

    Amit Sharma

    Graduate Student
    May 14, 2019 | 12:55 p.m.

    Thanks, Ellen,

    In line with the CMP philosophy of testing curriculum /pedagogical interventions with extensive feedback from users ( teacher and students), we are studying the affordances (and limitations) of this platform. I hope we can bring this to the CMP classrooms soon.

  • Icon for: Brian Drayton

    Brian Drayton

    Researcher
    May 13, 2019 | 08:30 a.m.

    Really promising stuff!  To what extent is working with this environment a natural fit with Cnnected Math pedagogy?  My impression is that CMP teachers generally need to facilitate discussion during problem-solving.  If that's right, then this ought to be pretty attractive. 

         I was also wondering if there are some math topics that are a better fit for this than others?

  • Icon for: Amit Sharma

    Amit Sharma

    Graduate Student
    May 13, 2019 | 01:24 p.m.

    Hi Brian,
    Thanks for your comment. I am a graduate student at Michigan State University. I am fortunate to be involved with this project since its inception.
    The conceptualization, design, development of the digital environment, is driven and informed by CMP's curriculum and pedagogical philosophy. Ensuring the natural fit to CMP was one of the main consideration. We wanted to leverage the years of the learning experience we have in the paper-pencil context while exploring the affordance of the digital environment. The iterative development process of the collaborative environment (and other tools) was informed by concurrent testing in selected CMP classrooms and embedding the feedback into the design.

    Regarding your second question, about some math topics to be a better fit than others, we are mindfully examining this. Since the issue of collaboration gets conflated with the affordances of digital inscriptions, among other issues, we don't have a definite answer for it, as yet. I am glad to note that you pointed to an aspect that is very much in our radar.

  • Icon for: Jennifer Stevens

    Jennifer Stevens

    President & CEO
    May 13, 2019 | 10:08 a.m.

    I am so impressed with your work! The platform seems to be a great tool for engaging students in math and allowing them to use the digital skills they already have to collaborate with their peers. I especially love the fact that the platform allows students to take risks in their problem solving which is a great way to move them toward a growth mindset in mathematics!

    Math teachers in our i3 project are integrating a number of strategies into their classroom instruction to promote growth mindset and self-efficacy which, in turn, motivates students to put forth effort and find success in math. Our video (1497)focuses more on the aspects of the virtual networked improvement community, but the problem of practice that teachers are working on is student motivation in pre-Algebra and Algebra I.

  • Icon for: Taren Going

    Taren Going

    Graduate Student
    May 13, 2019 | 02:53 p.m.

    Hi Jennifer,

    Thanks for your comment. I'm a graduate student working on the project, and I agree completely that the opportunity to collaborate digitally can bring out perseverance and new problem-solving strategies. These are hugely important for developing a growth mindset in students and in teachers (as in your work). With the digital work that we are currently doing on facilitating students' deep mathematical learning, there is huge potential for archiving student strategies and teachers' pedagogical moves to create professional development resources for teachers to collaborate. This could be amazingly valuable to teachers who don't have another math teacher down the hall, or anyone else teaching their grade-level nearby.

  • Icon for: Jennifer Stevens

    Jennifer Stevens

    President & CEO
    May 14, 2019 | 05:56 a.m.

    I can certainly see the value of the professional development resources that could be created through your work.  We are always open to new partnerships, so please reach out to me to discuss further when/if you have interest.

    Jennifer

  • Icon for: Kenia Wiedemann

    Kenia Wiedemann

    Researcher
    May 13, 2019 | 12:31 p.m.

    That's cool stuff! I just LOVE the idea of having an open-platform that students can check each other's projects. For students who may be shy to risk or ask in the classroom, being able to "sneak" around, keeping a low-profile while they build confidence to go ahead and try their ideas is a precious resource! While they are preparing their work to be shared with the class, is there a chat tool for them to discuss their ideas with the teacher before sharing with others? I am trying to think from the shy-student-point-of-view! :-)

  • Icon for: Taren Going

    Taren Going

    Graduate Student
    May 13, 2019 | 02:33 p.m.

    Hi Kenia,

    Thanks for your comment. I'm a graduate student working on this project, and from my time watching students use this platform it really does seem that how easy it is to look at others' work really helps shy students in the classroom. There's not currently a chat tool in the platform, but there are other features that can help students to try out new ideas more privately. For example, students can turn the visibility on or off on their own work, so that they choose when they are ready for group members to see their work. If they need a little private think time to try out a new idea, then they might click they icon to temporarily "hide" their work, and then "show" it again when they're ready to talk about it. There's also the option for students to publish pieces of their work so that the whole class has access to it.

    Although it is not a 2-way chat feature, teachers do have the option to send prompts to students within the digital platform to help guide their thinking. The cool thing is that teachers can write and send prompts to the whole class, specific groups, or even individual students. Some of our test teachers have really enjoyed having the opportunity to look at what students did during class, and then set up group-specific prompts for the next day's work. 

     
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    Kenia Wiedemann
  • Icon for: Julie Amador

    Julie Amador

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 13, 2019 | 03:17 p.m.

    Great video and it was wonderful to learn more about what you are doing! This sounds like the technology is being used in ways that are truly transformative. I am curious about the logistics of this--noticing that every student had a computer (from what I can tell). How widespread is this being used? Does the software/process work with tablets?

    Julie

  • Icon for: Nathan Kimball

    Nathan Kimball

    Co-Presenter
    Curriculum Developer
    May 13, 2019 | 04:36 p.m.

    Hi Julie,

    This video reports on the work of the third year of a four-year project. As such, the platform has only been available to our hearty field-test teachers. It was designed for one-to-one classrooms with students working in groups of four. It runs in a browser, and works well on computers or Chromebooks. (The Chromebooks bring down the classroom cost significantly.) For the fourth year, we are exploring the possibility of making the software work on tablets which would require some alteration of the user interface and methods of manipulation. One big benefit of running on tablets would to facilitate the teacher's interaction with the teacher dashboard as he/she circulates around the class. The topic of when and how to release the software for wider use is currently under discussion.

  • Icon for: Julie Amador

    Julie Amador

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 13, 2019 | 05:11 p.m.

    This is great! Thanks for the details! I am glad there is conversation around when and how to release the software for wider use. Thanks!

  • Icon for: Denise Schultz

    Denise Schultz

    Facilitator
    Instructional Math Coach
    May 13, 2019 | 03:27 p.m.

    The teacher in the video makes two great points about the benefits this technology brings to her classroom and students. It allows them to be social about their learning and it allows access to all learners. Students can see each other’s work which then fuels their own thinking about the mathematics being used to solve high cognitive demand problems like those found in CMP. As a math teacher myself I can also see how it would improve my ability to monitor, select, and sequence the closing discussion. I would love this technology! I’m just curious, have you gotten any push back or prepared for potential push back that this technology could inadvertently allow students to rely on others solving the problem for them without thinking for themselves?

  • Icon for: Alden Edson

    Alden Edson

    Lead Presenter
    Research Assistant Professor
    May 14, 2019 | 09:25 a.m.

    Hi Denise. Thanks for your question. It is a good one, and one that we've been thinking about for quite some time. We've been using student engagement in mathematics as a lens for designing and developing the digital resources. This includes student authority and accountability - two ideas that have helped framed your question. And so students can control whether or not their work is "live" for others. And use it as a resource during the negotiating process with each other about how they work in groups. It provides students with a resource to help show others that they are authors of mathematics as well as a mechanism for students to hold themselves and each other accountable to the ideas. Interestingly, teachers report that using the digital platform is easier to support the dynamics of four-to-a-group when many teachers often use pairs and then have two pairs discuss. As you can heard in the video, students often feel good to hear that others are looking at their work and want to incorporate it into their ideas, which we are finding interesting and encouraging.

  • Icon for: Denise Schultz

    Denise Schultz

    Facilitator
    Instructional Math Coach
    May 15, 2019 | 12:17 a.m.

    I did hear that in the video and I too find it encouraging.  We want students to see themselves as authors of mathematics and to feel good about sharing their thinking with others when they are ready to, which is exactly what your digital platform allows them to do.  And you make a good point about holding themselves and others accountable as they learn to work as a group.  Developing teamwork skills is essential in today's world.  This is really exciting work.  Thank you again for sharing.

  • Icon for: Amy Hackenberg

    Amy Hackenberg

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 13, 2019 | 04:02 p.m.

    Thanks for sharing this interesting video. I am wondering if you are feeling a need to do different professional development with teachers using these tools with CMP3 v. not using them. And I am also curious to know if the tools work on iPads.

    Amy

  • Icon for: Amit Sharma

    Amit Sharma

    Graduate Student
    May 13, 2019 | 10:30 p.m.

    Dear Amy,

    Thanks for your questions.

    This project is a design based research and the platform is still under development (improvement) based on the continual feedback that we are collecting. While CMP does support the teachers with professional development on the use of technology, we will surely have to look into the professional development of teachers for this specific technology platform, as we scale up this project. Presently, there are only a few teachers involved in the design, testing and feedback process. The teachers involved in the testing are experienced with CMP and they have undergone several briefings / online sessions about the features and affordances of the platform tools. We did introduce the project to a few of the CMP teachers during professional development workshops and invited suggestions/ reactions which were largely positive and encouraging. 

    The tool currently does not work with iPads but we are exploring that possibility.

  • Icon for: Dave Miller

    Dave Miller

    Higher Ed Faculty
    May 13, 2019 | 05:43 p.m.

    Great video, and thanks for sharing your work with us in this showcase! I’m curious if the teachers who are involved in the study are leveraging / integrating with a learning management system to prompt on-going dialog among students. I’m also intrigued with the drawing tools and any student feedback on use of these digital tools.  The consortium is of interest as well, and I would like to know more about it - I’ll be accessing their website, shortly to have a look. Thanks! - Dav

  • Icon for: Alden Edson

    Alden Edson

    Lead Presenter
    Research Assistant Professor
    May 14, 2019 | 09:33 a.m.

    Hi Dave. Thanks for your questions. The teachers are not integrating with a specific learning management system to prompt on-going dialog among students as the digital platform is a stand-alone resource.

    One of the premise of the ideas of the project has been to think about how technology can support student discourse. Often times when technology is used in a one-to-one setting, teachers report that the technology can be more distracting from the goals of collaboration. With the tools we are developing, teachers are reporting more conversations in small group settings because the computers are linked in the platform and that students have more access to other people's thinking. 

    The drawing tools have been an ongoing development. Because we've incorporated the feedback from students and teachers through multiple interrelations and years of development, the tools have evolved to be important and useful for students to solve mathematics problems and communicate their thinking with others. With the variety of tools available in the workspace, it is interesting to see how students prefer to use the drawing tools, and have remarkable skills with touchpad technology.

  • Icon for: Susan Jo Russell

    Susan Jo Russell

    Facilitator
    Principal scientist
    May 13, 2019 | 06:01 p.m.

    Hi, this is a great collaboration of CMP's expertise in curriculum development and pedagogy with Concord Consortium's expertise in technology development.  I'm wondering if you've identified any teaching strategies in your field test classes that seem to particularly promote collaboration among students using these tools? And, on the other hand, have you identified any practices that discourage collaboration?

    cheers,

    Susan Jo

  • Icon for: Amit Sharma

    Amit Sharma

    Graduate Student
    May 14, 2019 | 12:28 p.m.

    Hi Susan,

    Thanks for your questions. The project is directed toward the development of the platform to encourage seamless and effective student work and collaboration. Since CMP teachers have significant expertise in facilitating inquiry-based collaborative classrooms, we are not specifically examining the teacher actions, at least at this stage. We want to ensure that the design and interface of the platform are responsive to the CMP philosophy and organic to the classroom culture.

    Based on the feedback from teachers and students, the digital tools seem to offer affordances for more effective, efficient and advanced mathematical thinking. Also, access to others work and real-time collaboration seems to be contributing to strengthening the mathematical community. Most teachers have reported increased ownership shown by the students. Due to these affordances, the need for teacher intervention seems to have gone down especially during the 'explore' phase and the 'summary' phase is allowing the teachers to reference the work of multiple students more easily.

    Having said this, there are a few things that have stood out in terms of teaching strategies. Teachers' own knowledge and comfort with the technology, is being reflected in the use of the platform. Also, some students have reported the need for individual work-time before directly working in a collaborative space. Some teachers have been experimenting with the assignment of roles in the student groups while others allow for more open roles. In line with the CMP philosophy of trusting the teachers' autonomy and decisions, we are concentrating on equipping the platform to be responsive to the varied instructional decisions made by teachers.

     

    Thanks.

  • Icon for: Susan Jo Russell

    Susan Jo Russell

    Facilitator
    Principal scientist
    May 14, 2019 | 05:06 p.m.

    Thanks, Amit.  This all seems very promising, especially the increased ownership by students.

     

  • Icon for: Beth Sappe

    Beth Sappe

    Facilitator
    Director - STEM Mathematics
    May 14, 2019 | 11:36 a.m.

    I am so excited to see ways that students can engage in technology in a way that enhances learning. The video showed examples of students conceptualizing math concretely and abstractly which can be difficult to do with only a pencil and paper. This is a shift in the traditional way that teachers typically engage students in mathematics. What professional learning opportunities are included for teachers? I am also curious if students can give one another feedback on their work? I think this could also be used as a tool to help build teacher content knowledge, I feel a though there are many possibilities to support education with with program. 

  • Icon for: Amit Sharma

    Amit Sharma

    Graduate Student
    May 14, 2019 | 12:28 p.m.

    Hi Beth,
    We share your excitement at the potential of such a technology platform. We are trying to ensure that the affordances (and limitations) are explored and tested in a robust manner before we decide on subsequent plans.

    Regarding your point about professional development for teachers, this project is a design based research and the platform is still under development (improvement) based on the continual feedback that we are collecting. While CMP does support the teachers with professional development on various issues including on the use of technology, we will surely have to look into the professional development of teachers for this specific technology platform, as and when we scale up this project. Presently, there are only a few teachers involved in the design, testing and feedback process. The teachers involved in the testing are experienced with CMP and they have undergone several briefings / online sessions about the features and affordances of the platform tools.

    The students are working in small groups while having access to each other work on the laptops, and hence they have the option of providing feedback and suggestions in-person and also by writing on the collaborative pages ( where group members have shared access). While the students can view the work of other students outside their group ( and can even bring it into their own workspace) there is no chat feature / common screen sharing across all students. Since the platform is designed for in-class use, and whole group discussions are integral to the CMP classroom, the need for such a feature hasn't surfaced. Our endeavor is to have features and tools that align with the instructional needs of the classrooms.

    Thanks

  • Icon for: Beth Sappe

    Beth Sappe

    Facilitator
    Director - STEM Mathematics
    May 17, 2019 | 11:41 a.m.

    Thanks for the thorough response. I am excited to see the final results of  your study. 

  • Icon for: John Fraser

    John Fraser

    Researcher
    May 14, 2019 | 12:50 p.m.

    Hey there gang,

    Great to see how we're getting beyond the autonomous learner sitting in a room with other automatons.  It's why schools can work. Doing it for math is even more exciting.  We look forward to reading more about how this type of shared knowledge production means for the sense of competence as a math learner.  This was the teaser video I needed. Can you share some links to papers you've written or reports we can read about your approach?

  • Icon for: Amit Sharma

    Amit Sharma

    Graduate Student
    May 14, 2019 | 01:38 p.m.

    Hi John,

    Thanks for your encouragement.

    Here is a list of few papers that are out currently-

             Edson, A. J., Kursav, M. N., & Sharma, A. (2018). Promoting collaboration and mathematical engagement in a digital learning environment. In T.E. Hodges, G.J. Roy, & A.M. Tyminski (Eds.) Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (pp. 1243-1246). Greenville, SC: University of South Carolina & Clemson University.

     

               Going, T., Kursav, M., Slanger-Grant, Y., Bieda, K., & Edson, A. J. (2018). Understanding the nature of uncertainty in problem solving situations. In T.E. Hodges, G.J. Roy, & A.M. Tyminski (Eds.) Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (pp. 1335-1338). Greenville, SC: University of South Carolina & Clemson University.

     

                Edson, A.J., Phillips, E.D., & Bieda, K. (2018). Transitioning a problem-based curriculum from print to digital: New considerations for task design. In H-G Weigand, A. Clark-Wilson, A. Donevska-Todorova, E. Faggiano, N. Gronbaek & A. Trgalova (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth ERME Topic Study on Mathematics in the Digital Age (p. 59-67). Copenhagen, Denmark: University of Copenhagen.

    As you can imagine, our focus in the initial stages of the project was more on developing the technology. We used the student and teacher feedback primarily to inform the product improvement.  Now that we have reached a stage where the platform is robust, stable and has many affordances, we are focusing on studying and documenting its effectiveness and limitations. So do keep an eye out for our future publications.

    Thanks.

     

  • Icon for: John Fraser

    John Fraser

    Researcher
    May 14, 2019 | 02:04 p.m.

    Treasure trove!

    Thanks

    Johnny

  • Icon for: Jessica Hunt

    Jessica Hunt

    Researcher
    May 15, 2019 | 08:47 a.m.

    Hi,

    I really enjoyed this video and hearing about your work. I remember when I taught middle school that my principal often said that students come to school and power down, and why couldn't we leverage technology to open access for students to participate more in their learning and share their thinking. I love how this project is working toward that goal.

    You may have already said this, yet I am wondering if you have data on how and to what extent the technology is increasing participation in thinking and reasoning and for whom?

    Thanks!

    Jessica

  • Icon for: Taren Going

    Taren Going

    Graduate Student
    May 15, 2019 | 10:33 a.m.

    Hi Jessica,

    Thanks for your question. At the moment, we primarily have baseline data about how students participate when first introduced to the technology, and we are hoping to collect more data about how this shifts over time as students become experienced with learning mathematics in a collaborative, digital environment. Based on this early data, the platform seems promising for increasing student participation for a wide variety of students. We've been able to do quite a few student surveys/interviews and teacher interviews, and they've dominantly expressed that there is more participation in class and that it is easier for students to find ways to participate. One thing we've noticed is that students are able to connect verbally with their peers' strategies as well as by remotely viewing what they did. For example, one student might produce some mathematical work silently and later in class a peer notices it and brings up that strategy for further discussion. This has really helped students who are less willing to talk in a more traditional paper-and-pencil classroom. Since there are more ways to participate and see others' mathematical ideas, there are more opportunities for discussion among students.

     
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    Jessica Hunt
  • Icon for: Zen Borys

    Zen Borys

    Researcher
    May 15, 2019 | 11:39 p.m.

     This exciting work, thanks for sharing!  I noticed one of the features is for teachers to be able to see the students work remotely in real time.  And as previously mentioned, this could be great for sequencing students when building a discussion.  I was wondering if you noticed any differences in assessment practices or patterns?  For example, do teachers still circulate as much as with a pencil/paper system, or do they do more remote observing from a distance, or something else altogether?  With all the data available, how are teachers using it? and does it play out in the classroom dynamics differently?  Great video!  

  • Icon for: Nathan Kimball

    Nathan Kimball

    Co-Presenter
    Curriculum Developer
    May 16, 2019 | 11:12 a.m.

    Hi Zen,

    I've been an observer in two of our test classrooms and have seen that, in general, these teachers spend their time circulating among students, and do not use the feature in real time. When it comes time for a discussion, of ongoing work, teachers often will have spotted work that they would like to share with others, and can either call directly on the students to share it, or find it easily on the system. Of course, at the end of the day, student work remains in the system. They have automatically submitted it, and using the system, it can be reviewed quickly to help focus their direction for the next day. Regardless that the system is real-time, I think this more delayed approach of reviewed the data via the technology is appropriate and efficient. 

    Where the real-time system is valuable is when students are given some concentrated time to work individually or in small groups. Teachers can sit back and see if some students are struggling, while not interrupting classroom concentration. In such a situation, teachers usually know the students who struggle, but by being able to view their ongoing work, they don't have to highlight them with frequent checking.

    In designing the system, we relied on the vast experience of CMP teachers, and therefore, we've tried to support the well-known classroom patterns CMP teachers use. We hope to make certain aspects of these patterns stronger, for instance, by making student artifacts more easily accessible both for teachers and students. For instance, Learning Logs where students summarize their work persist across units and are easily shared among students.

     

  • Icon for: Amit Sharma

    Amit Sharma

    Graduate Student
    May 16, 2019 | 11:47 a.m.

    Hi Zen,

    Thanks for your questions.

    Adding onto Nathan, I would say, since the platform is designed for in-class use, the teachers continue to see the value of physically circulating in the class. A feature that we have been experimenting with is the ability for teachers to digitally pass on thinking prompts to an individual / a group of students/whole class. Through this, the teachers can pass on pre-populated and/or customized prompts directed at specific students. We are still working on improving this tool and will be able to report on the enactment in the near future.

    I will also add that currently, the platform works only on laptops/computers and not on iPads (or mobile devices). We are exploring the possibility of customizing the platform for iPads. It will be interesting to see the changes with respect to teachers' movement in the class if teachers start using iPads / tablets. In addition to the relative ease of mobility, the use of stylus will be another big affordance of tablets / iPads.

     

     

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