Pi Day

The project will develop and research the impact of an expanded model for mathematics professional development (PD) for elementary second and third grade teachers.

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by engaging in hands-on field experience, laboratory/project-based entrepreneurship tasks and mentorship experiences.

This study by Worcester Polytechnic Institute will ascertain how well "disengagement" of students in mathematics can be determined from math learning software and how well it predicts later outcomes of STEM learning and career advancement.

In existing CryptoClub after school programs, middle school students use mathematics to make and break secret codes. The CryptoClub website has tools for encrypting, messages to crack, treasure hunts and other activities. In this project, the learning in fifteen Crypto Clubs is extended by having the students generate tutorials that explain how they solve mathematics and cryptographic problems. The flexibility of the after school setting provides the opportunity to experiment with content and technology.

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase student motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by developing and testing an intervention system to engage students in meaningful STEM problem posing and solving and by providing an on-line tool to assist teachers in guiding the process.

The Real World Externships project provides professional development for 150 mathematics and science teachers in grades 7-12 in Iowa. The teachers participate in externships with local science-based industries for six weeks during the summer. Teachers learn current applications of science and mathematics that they can use to enhance their teaching.

The purpose of the iPuzzle project is to develop a model for supporting student engagement in learning mathematics using innovative technologies. Researchers will develop this model by creating and examining an interactive puzzle environment that could be used locally in a single networked classroom or created for the web so that it could be used at multiple schools using different computing devices and platforms. Mixed-methods will be employed in this research and development project to examine the impact of the proposed learning environment on student engagement and learning.

The investigators seek are examining the relationship between specific technology-based motivational activities and grade 5 to 9 student interest in STEM careers through a variety of classroom-based experiences. Students will be exposed to the work of STEM professionals, take a scripted two-day mathematics lesson, solve problems in algebra, and respond to questionnaires immediately after and six months after the experience. The study will vary the technological context of the induction experiences and hold constant the instructional component.

Seventy math and science teachers and 70 students in northeast NC will work on teams with business partners to apply critical and analytical thinking, information technology skills, and mathematical principals to solve real-world business problems.