Research on Mathematics Education

1
Research on Mathematics Education

• Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst, Ph.D.
• Director
• Institute of Education Sciences
• United States Department of Education

2
Achievement
3

• NAEP 2000 Proficiency

4

• TIMSS Math 1995

5
Declared Major 4-year colleges

6
Tracking and Grouping
7
Assessment for Instruction
8
Structured Peer Feedback
9
The Math Wars
10
Conceptual Understanding
11
Decimal Fractions

• 509 gt 7
• .509 lt .7

12
Decimal Fractions

• 0.509
• ____________________

?
0
1
13
Checks on Constructivism

• Many routes to understanding
• Limits on working memory
• Inefficiency of discovery
• Role of work in learning

14
(No Transcript)
15
Curriculum
16
Constructivist Math 3 States
17
Implementation
18
(No Transcript)
19
Teachers
20
5th Grade Math Tennessee
Teacher Effectiveness for 3 Years
21
5th Grade Math Dallas
Teacher Effectiveness for 3 Years
22
Characteristics of teachers

• General knowledge and ability
• Experience

23
Characteristics of teachers

• Pre-service
• Certification, degrees, and coursework
• Professional development
• Duration/intensity
• Content knowledge focus
• Coherence
• Form
• Coaching
• Learning communities
• Didactic

24
Characteristics of teachers

• The learned professional
• The skilled professional
• Workforce realities
• Out of field teaching
• Twice as high in poverty schools
• Lower general cognitive skills
• Turnover (15.2 per year in high poverty schools
  higher for math and science)

25
Infield teaching
26
Alignment
27
NAEP
4th Grade Math Gains 1992 to 2000
28
Elements of State Math Reforms

• State-wide standards
• Linked state-wide assessments
• Accountability for results

29
Putting It Together
30
(No Transcript)