Transition Mathematics Project

National Expertise:

Dr. Michael Davis is a lead research specialist at the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California at Berkeley. He earned a Ph.D. from Stanford University in educational psychology. He has taught students of all age groups and from a wide array of racial/ethnic, linguistic, and social backgrounds. Dr. Davis is devoted to helping schools meet the learning needs of all of their students. Because of the role mathematics and science education plays in future education and career opportunities, he has focused his work on these content areas. His research interests include identity, social/emotional functioning, perceptions of learning, and how these areas relate to each other and academic achievement.  

 

Session Description:

Understanding and Addressing the Social/Emotional Needs of Learners with Histories of Difficulty in Mathematics

This session will examine how students’ identities, beliefs, and emotions interact with each other and influence the ways students engage with learning activities in mathematics classrooms.  Particular attention will be given to how these factors affect students with histories of difficulty with mathematics and the ways that curriculum and pedagogy can promote more productive engagement for these students.

 

Linda Fisher is Director of the Mathematics Assessment Collaborative, a group of 40 school districts in the San Francisco Bay Area that work together to do performance assessment, professional development, and in-class coaching for mathematics. Linda oversees the administration, scoring, and analysis of approximately 70,000 student papers a year in grades 3 through 10. She authors an annual Tools for Teachers, which provides an interactive analysis of the data for each task, to help teachers reflect on student learning and improve instruction.  She also organizes and helps plan the professional development program for the school districts and is currently working on an in-class action research project.  She has recently authored a couple of articles for Assessing Mathematical Proficiency, edited by Alan Schoenfeld and published by Cambridge Press.

 

Session #1 Description:

Making the Most of Formative Assessments: Uncovering and Confronting Student Misconceptions.

Participants will view some examples of good formative assessment.
Participants will work tasks, analyze student work, and see how the results can be used to give students feedback in the form of follow up lessons.  Research is based on the work of Wiliam and Black, Inside the Black Box. Participants will be given resources for assessments and tools for using the assessments.

Session #2 Description:

Designing Re-engagement Lessons: Confronting Misconceptions Head-On.

In this session we will look at student misconceptions from assessments and learn how to design interesting lessons to help students confront misconceptions.  Included in the session will be videos of re-engagement lessons in the classroom.  Participants will also be given sample student work and the opportunity to design a re-engagement lesson of their own. The research behind this lesson style is based on the work of Malcolm Swan.

 

As Project Director of Achieving the Dream and Professor of Mathematics at Valencia Community College, Julie Phelps’ work centers around studying and refining three types of learning community strategies:  Supplemental Instruction (Supplemental Learning), Paired Courses (Learning in Community, LinC) and expand the offerings of the Student Success Course for “the students who need community colleges the most.”  Her goal is to use data to inform decisions about closing the achievement gaps in student performance.  At Valencia, there are achievement gaps between under-prepared and college-ready students, across ethnic and racial groups, and between success in math and success in other disciplines. In addition to her leadership role, she teaches the developmental mathematics courses that are supported by the learning communities. 

 

Session Description:

ONLINE EVENT - Practical and Workable Ideas for Learning Communitities

Valencia developed a strategic plan using institutional data during the Spring 2005 for the “Achieving the Dream” Initiative. The planning process helped Valencia focus on six courses based upon high enrollment and low success rates. Subsequently, the college chose the strategies that already showed promise using measurements of ripeness, scalability and effectiveness.   The groundwork laid by the planning process continues to shape Valencia's learning communities through the implementation of three integrated strategies: Supplemental Learning, Learning in Communities and the Student Success Course

 

 

Uri Treisman is professor of mathematics at The University of Texas at Austin and executive director of the Charles A. Dana Center. His research and professional interests include mathematics and science education, education policy, and community service and volunteerism.
Professor Treisman has received numerous honors and awards for his efforts to strengthen American education. For his research at the University of California at Berkeley of the factors that support high achievement among minority students in calculus, he received the 1987 Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in American Higher Education. In 1992, he was named a MacArthur Fellow. In December 1999, he was named as one of the outstanding leaders in higher education in the 20th century by the magazine Black Issues in Higher Education.

Session Description:

ONLINE EVENT - Keynote on a National Perspective and Context

 

Local / Regional Expertise

 

Emily Lardner & Gillies Malnarich, Co-Directors of the Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, at Evergreen State College

Session Title:

Teaching for Understanding

 

 

David Lippman, is a math instructor at Pierce College-Steilacoom. He has developed an open-source math-focused course management and assessment tool, IMathAS. As part of a grant project supporting this, he has been working with high school instructors on using this technology in the classroom, and to develop assessments based on our College Readiness Standards

Session Description:

Using Washington Mathematics Assessment and Placement (WAMAP.com) to Support Students and Teachers

Interested in online drill exercises or homework, but don’t want extra costs to students or to get shackled to a publisher?  WAMAP.org is a free online course management and assessment tool providing immediate feedback on algorithmically generated questions with numerical or algebraic expression answers.  We'll look at some classroom support uses, as well as customized placement applications.

 

 

Joanne Munroe, adjunct faculty at Olympic College and TMP Research Expert
and
Erik Scott, Highline Community College Math Instructor

Session Title:

Strategies for Helping Students Understand and Assess the CRS Attributes

 

 

Ginger Warfield, University of Washington Math Faculty and Leader of Washington Teachers of Teachers of Mathematics (WaToToM)

Virginia "Ginger" Warfield, UW senior lecturer in math, always knew she'd become a mathematician -- it was in the genes, you might say. Her family made it clear, she says, that "the only reasonable thing for an adult to be was a mathematician, and that of course I could be one."

But it wasn't until her university career was under way that Warfield's interest in mathematics education -- how K-12 teachers teach math -- began to grow.

Now that interest, which long ago evolved into a professional focus that involved Warfield in several grant-funded projects to improve classroom math education, has earned her one of the field's most prestigious honors.

Debra Olson, of the Mathematics Education Collaborative (MEC)

Session Description:

Supporting Math Teachers Around Substantive Math Content

You have a chance to get involved in a very exciting project that now exists small scale and we very much hope to see at a larger scale with an NSF Math and Science Partnership grant. The project involves 9-day summer courses run by the Mathematics Education Collaborative (Ruth Parker's organization). The courses are designed for K-12 teachers, and folks in Higher Ed have a chance to take them side by side with K-12 teachers and follow this up with symposia about what we have learned and what we can do with it. The two of us have both taken one of the courses and found it very exciting. We will describe the course and discuss the rest of the plans.

 

Pat Averbeck
and
Helen Burn, Math Instructor and Chair, Pure and Applied Sciences Division at Highline Community College

Session Title:

Connecting the project to Other State and National Efforts  

 

Helen Burn, Math Instructor and Chair, Pure and Applied Sciences Division at Highline Community College
and
Janet Ray, Seattle Central Community College, retired.

Session Title:

How/Why Do Math Departments Organize Around Innovation?