Math Images II

Drexel University, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

This CCLI Type 2 project involves the creation, adaptation, and dissemination of new learning materials and teaching strategies that have the potential to transform undergraduate education in mathematics and computer science. Math Images II develops a model for providing undergraduates who might consider a STEM major with pre-research experiences working with and learning to write math, and extends this model to also include computer science and preservice education students. Students engage face-to-face and online as participants in supervised summer research groups or they are involved in special projects during an academic year course. As part of the plan to scale and extend the CCLI Phase I Math Images project that engaged undergraduate students in writing and understanding mathematics, this project includes a diverse group of student participants from a wide variety of institutions and disciplinary preparations who collaborate in the development of content managed online through the Math Forum. Participating students learn to write mathematics to explain the content of images, to construct images or software programs to help understand the mathematics of the images, or to develop course materials that include work with image pages. They are supported through collaborations with faculty, peers, and online resource personnel (mathematicians, computer scientists, math education faculty, and teachers) to revise their work so it can be published on the Math Images wiki (beta version, http://mathforum.org/mathimages/). This project develops teaching strategies and new learning materials to transform the quality of STEM education for undergraduates. It brings together students from different disciplinary backgrounds, faculty, and online resource personnel as collaborators and models for how to think and work with images and mathematics. The development of a rubric for assessing open-ended mathematics writing and study of participant work with instructional conversation should enable this experience to be scaled in relation to participants' entering strengths and needs and, in turn, improve the quality of their participation. This project makes four types of contributions. First, it contributes a resource that can provide the general public with enriched understanding of what mathematics actually is while serving as both an instructional resource for classroom work at all levels, and a new vehicle for student projects. Second, it documents the motivation and learning of student participants involved in working with images and mathematics writing, programming, and/or lesson design that takes advantage of and contributes to web resources. Third, the project yields a rubric for assessing open-ended mathematics writing that is tested and refined through its application to the work of a diverse pool of participants. This is a resource that is needed for both mathematics classrooms and studies of learning from new media. Finally, the project documents the forms of feedback that support learners who differ in motivation and prior experience with mathematics. Little information is currently available about how to respond to the strengths and needs of learners with different motivational and learning profiles. Findings are disseminated to both research and practitioner audiences.