Integration of Technology, Curriculum, and Professional Development for Advancing Middle School Mathematics

Abstract

The authors present three studies (two randomized controlled experiments and one embedded quasi-experiment) designed to evaluate the impact of replacement units targeting student learning of advanced middle school mathematics. The studies evaluated the SimCalc approach, which integrates an interactive representational technology, paper curriculum, and teacher professional development. Each study addressed both replicability of findings and robustness across Texas settings, with varied teacher characteristics (backgrounds, knowledge, attitudes) and student characteristics (demographics, levels of prior mathematics knowledge). Analyses revealed statistically significant main effects, with student-level effect sizes of .63, .50, and .56. These consistent gains support the conclusion that SimCalc is effective in enabling a wide variety of teachers in a diversity of settings to extend student learning to more advanced mathematics.

How do online course design features influence student performance?

“…). Rather, technology tools that did promote student learning were those that provided students with more control over their interactions with media (e.g., Balaji & Chakrabarti, 2010) and those that encouraged learner reflection (e.g., Roschelle et al, 2010). These results suggest that simply incorporating current technology into a course is not sufficient to improve student success; rather, the technology must also be thoughtfully leveraged to support student learning in the service of defined learning objectives.…”

Generalizing from Unrepresentative Experiments: A Stratified Propensity Score Approach

“…One such technological aid is SimCalc, which is a mathematics software program that uses a dynamic representation strategy to help middle school students to learn to solve rates and proportions problems. To evaluate the effectiveness of SimCalc, the research firm SRI International conducted two cluster‐randomized trials of SimCalc in public schools in the state of Texas: a pilot study, which included 19 schools, and a full study, which included 73 schools (Roschelle et al ., ). The outcome variable is the school‐average student gain scores on a test that focuses directly on the issues of proportionality, linearity and rates of change.…”

“…Although every effort was made to include schools representative of the state, the sample of schools was not a probability sample of schools in Texas; the process of selection is described in Roschelle et al . (), page 855. In particular they worked with regional education authorities to recruit the schools.…”

Mathematics teaching practices with technology that support conceptual understanding for Latino/a students

“…For example, some researchers examine the teachers' mathematical knowledge (e.g., Hill, Rowan, & Ball, 2005), or how teachers implement reform-based mathematics tasks (e.g., Henningsen & Stein, 1997). Some analyses from the larger Scaling Up SimCalc study collected data and built on these frameworks (e.g., Roschelle et al, 2010;Sechtman, Roschelle, Haertel, & Knudsen, 2010). For this paper we focus on how three teachers set up and taught the same lesson to meet the needs of their students.…”